Hi, we're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.

I'm Cody Gough.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about why smells trigger such vivid memories, why an ancient tree is changing our

understanding of how trees evolved,

and how you can find out if you suffer from imposter syndrome,

along with ways to get over it.

Let's satisfy some curiosity.

Smells have a stronger link to memory and emotion than any of the other senses, and

neuroscience may know the reason why.

We touched on the link between smell and memory and the first podcast we ever posted back in 2017 but today we thought we'd give a

refresher on why smells trigger such vivid memories and that was a long time ago

yeah we've been doing this a while. It's been a minute.

Smells get processed kind of differently than your other senses.

When you see, here, touch, or taste something,

that's sensory information first heads to the thalamus.

That's like your brain's relay station.

The thalamus then sends that information to the relevant brain areas, including the

hippocampus, which is responsible for memory, and the amygdala, which does the emotional processing.

But with smells, it's different.

Cents bypass the thalamus and go straight to the brain smell center, which is known as the olfactory bulb.

The olfactory bulb is directly connected to the amigula and hippocampus, which might explain

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