Smells may evoke memories just as well even when depression is impacting recollections

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-02-14 03:00

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Smells have a way of triggering specific memories, and international researchers say their power may be just as strong even in people whose memory is impacted by depression. The researchers say major depressive disorder can impact memory recall, so they recruited 32 people with major depressive disorder to test their ability to recall memories with verbal cues or with odour cues. The researchers say the participants recalled more specific memories when prompted with smells compared with words, and while they recalled fewer memories than a group of people without a depression diagnosis did when prompted with words, their ability to recall memories when prompted with an odour was not any different to the group without depression.