Tag Archives: scent

Help maintain cognitive and memory functions with virtual reality (VR) game which integrates smell

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I always enjoy a research story involving the sense of smell (olfaction); the most recent ones here being an April 22, 2025 posting (also from the Institute of Science Tokyo) “Fragrance design using deep neural networks (DNNs)” and an April 17, 2025 posting “Olfactory ethics.” There’s also this ‘golden oldie’ from May 22, 2017 “Preserving heritage smells (scents).” Now, the sense of smell enters virtual reality.

Caption: Olfactory VR offers the potential for cognitive rehabilitation and dementia preventation [sic] in aging populations Credit: Institute of Science Tokyo

An April 30, 2025 Institute of Science Tokyo press release (also on EurekAlerrt) describes some of the latest investigation into the sense of smell, Note: A link has been removed,

As the global population ages, supporting older adults in maintaining their cognitive and memory functions has become a pressing concern. The United Nations estimates that by the 2070s, there will be over 2.2 billion people aged 65 or older, surpassing the global number of children under 18. This demographic shift is especially pronounced in Japan, the fastest-aging country, where 28.7% of the population is 65 or older.

One promising strategy to counter cognitive decline is through olfactory stimulation—engaging the sense of smell. Smell signals travel directly to brain regions involved in memory and emotion. Building on this knowledge, a joint research team from Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo), University of the Arts London, Bunkyo Gakuin University, and Hosei University, Japan, has developed the world’s first cognitive training method for older adults by combining olfactory stimulation with virtual reality (VR). The study was published in Volume 15 of the journal Scientific Reports on March 28, 2025.

“VR provides a promising platform to simulate sensory conditions in a controlled yet engaging manner. By combining goal-oriented tasks with real-time feedback, our VR-based olfactory training approach can increase cognitive engagement and maximize its therapeutic impact,” says Professor Takamichi Nakamoto from Science Tokyo.

The method involves an olfactory display that emits specific scents during immersive VR gameplay, activating memory- and emotion-related brain regions. In the activity, participants are asked to memorize and later match scents within a virtual environment. The experience begins in a virtual landscape. Using a VR controller, participants interact with a scent source represented by a stone statue. When touched, the statue releases a specific scent, accompanied by a white vapor cloud as a visual cue to reinforce memory.

Participants then explore the virtual landscape to locate a scent source. As they move through the landscape, the olfactory display emits subtle traces of the scent to guide them to the location. Upon reaching the odor source, shown as a stone lantern, they encounter three colored vapor clouds, each emitting a different scent. Their task is to compare the smells and identify the one that matches the original scent they memorized.

“The smell memory phase strengthens odor recognition and memory encoding by linking the olfactory stimulus with a visual cue. The navigation phase challenges players to integrate spatial navigation with odor recognition while retaining memory of the initial scent. The final odor comparison phase engages olfactory discrimination and working memory retrieval, reinforcing cognitive function,” explains Nakamoto.

The activity led to noticeable cognitive improvements in 30 older adults aged 63 to 90. After just 20 minutes of playing the VR game, participants showed improvements in visuospatial rotation and memory. Visuospatial processing and cognitive function were assessed through different tasks. In the Hiragana Rotation Task, where they had to decide if rotated Japanese characters matched the original, scores improved from 19–82 to 29–85. In a word-based spatial memory recall task, where participants memorized word positions in a grid, scores rose from 0­–15 to 3–15. These improvements were validated through statistical analysis.

With continued research and development toward more affordable olfactory displays or alternate scent delivery methods, olfactory-based VR activities could become an accessible and engaging tool for supporting mental health in older adults.

About Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo)

Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo) was established on October 1, 2024, following the merger between Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) and Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), with the mission of “Advancing science and human wellbeing to create value for and with society.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Exploring the effects of olfactory VR on visuospatial memory and cognitive processing in older adults by Ryota Sunami, Takamichi Nakamoto, Nathan Cohen, Takefumi Kobayashi & Kohsuke Yamamoto . Scientific Reports volume 15, Article number: 10805 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-94693-9 Published: 28 March 2025

This paper is open access.

Preserving heritage smells (scents)

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Preserving a smell? It’s an intriguing idea and forms the research focus for scientists at the University College London’s (UCL) Institute for Sustainable Heritage according to an April 6, 2017 Biomed Central news release on EurekAlert,

A ‘Historic Book Odour Wheel’ which has been developed to document and archive the aroma associated with old books, is being presented in a study in the open access journal Heritage Science. Researchers at UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage created the wheel as part of an experiment in which they asked visitors to St Paul’s Cathedral’s Dean and Chapter library in London to characterize its smell.

The visitors most frequently described the aroma of the library as ‘woody’ (selected by 100% of the visitors who were asked), followed by ‘smoky’ (86%), ‘earthy'(71%) and ‘vanilla’ (41%). The intensity of the smells was assessed as between ‘strong odor’ and ‘very strong odor’. Over 70% of the visitors described the smell as pleasant, 14% as ‘mildly pleasant’ and 14% as ‘neutral’.

In a separate experiment, the researchers presented visitors to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery with an unlabelled historic book smell – sampled from a 1928 book they obtained from a second-hand bookshop in London – and collected the terms used to describe the smell. The word ‘chocolate’ – or variations such as ‘cocoa’ or ‘chocolatey’ – was used most often, followed by ‘coffee’, ‘old’, ‘wood’ and ‘burnt’. Participants also mentioned smells including ‘fish’, ‘body odour’, ‘rotten socks’ and ‘mothballs’.

Cecilia Bembibre, heritage scientist at UCL and corresponding author of the study said: “Our odour wheel provides an example of how scientists and historians could begin to identify, analyze and document smells that have cultural significance, such as the aroma of old books in historic libraries. The role of smells in how we perceive heritage has not been systematically explored until now.”

Attempting to answer the question of whether certain smells could be considered part of our cultural heritage and if so how they could be identified, protected and conserved, the researchers also conducted a chemical analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which they sampled from books in the library. VOCs are chemicals that evaporate at low temperatures, many of which can be perceived as scents or odors.

Combining their findings from the VOC analysis with the visitors’ characterizations, the authors created their Historic Book Odour wheel, which shows the chemical description of a smell (such as acetic acid) together with the sensory descriptions provided by the visitors (such as ‘vinegar’).

Cecilia Bembibre said: “By documenting the words used by the visitors to describe a heritage smell, our study opens a discussion about developing a vocabulary to identify aromas that have cultural meaning and significance.”

She added: “The Historic Book Odour Wheel also has the potential to be used as a diagnostic tool by conservators, informing on the condition of an object, for example its state of decay, through its olfactory profile.”

The authors suggest that, in addition to its use for the identification and conservation of smells, the Historic Book Odour Wheel could potentially be used to recreate smells and aid the design of olfactory experiences in museums, allowing visitors to form a personal connection with exhibits by allowing them to understand what the past smelled like.

Before this can be done, further research is needed to build on the preliminary findings in this study to allow them to inform and benefit heritage management, conservation, visitor experience design and heritage policy making.

Here’s what the Historic Book Odour Wheel looks like,

Odour wheel of historic book containing general aroma categories, sensory descriptors and chemical information on the smells as sampled (colours are arbitrary) Courtesy: Heritage Science [downloaded from https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-016-0114-1

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Smell of heritage: a framework for the identification, analysis and archival of historic odours by Cecilia Bembibre and Matija Strlič. Heritage Science20175:2 DOI: 10.1186/s40494-016-0114-1 Published: 7 April 2017

©  The Author(s) 2017

This paper is open access.

Scented video games: a nanotechnology project in Europe

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Ten years ago when I was working on a master’s degree (creative writing and new media), I was part of a group presentation on multimedia and to prepare started a conversation about scent as part of a multimedia experience. Our group leader was somewhat outraged. He’d led international multimedia projects and as far as he was concerned the ‘scent’ discussion was a waste of time when we were trying to prepare a major presentation.

He was right and wrong. I think you’re supposed to have these discussions when you’re learning and exploring ideas but, in 2006, there wasn’t much work of that type to discuss. It seems things may be changing according to a May 21, 2016 news item on Nanowerk (Note: A link has been removed),

Controlled odour emission could transform video games and television viewing experiences and benefit industries such as pest control and medicine [emphasis mine]. The NANOSMELL project aims to switch smells on and off by tagging artificial odorants with nanoparticles exposed to electromagnetic field.

I wonder if the medicinal possibilities include nanotechnology-enabled aroma therapy?

Getting back to the news, a May 10, 2016 European Commission press release, which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

The ‘smellyvision’ – a TV that offers olfactory as well as visual stimulation – has been a science fiction staple for years. However, realising this concept has proved difficult given the sheer complexity of how smell works and the technical challenges of emitting odours on demand.

NANOSMELL will specifically address these two challenges by developing artificial smells that can be switched on and off remotely. This would be achieved by tagging specific DNA-based artificial odorants – chemical compounds that give off smells – with nanoparticles that respond to external electromagnetic fields.

With the ability to remotely control these artificial odours, the project team would then be able to examine exactly how olfactory receptors respond. Sensory imaging to investigate the patterns of neural activity and behavioural tests will be carried out in animals.

The project would next apply artificial odorants to the human olfactory system and measure perceptions by switching artificial smells on and off. Researchers will also assess whether artificial odorants have a role to play in wound healing by placing olfactory receptors in skin.

The researchers aim to develop controllable odour-emitting components that will further understanding of smell and open the door to novel odour-emitting applications in fields ranging from entertainment to medicine.

Project details

  • Project acronym: NanoSmell
  • Participants: Israel (Coordinator), Spain, Germany, Switzerland
  • Project Reference N° 662629
  • Total cost: € 3 979 069
  • EU contribution: € 3 979 069
  • Duration:September 2015 – September 2019

You can find more information on the European Commission’s NANOSMELL project page.