The partially pseudo/neuroscience that connects our sense of smell to memory is nothing new. The smell of Gardenias may evoke your memories of your Grandmother, woody scents remind you of summer camp, and so on. But despite its overuse, we’re only beginning to understand its usefulness, perhaps most powerfully for those whose memory is compromised. Seizing upon this untapped potential, creative agency JWT teamed up with Singapore-based purveyor of fragrances Givaudan to create Smell a Memory, a set of customised scents meant to stoke the memories of Alzheimer's and dementia patients.

According to JWT, “the idea was to evoke emotional memories not just factual ones. Scents that could open the floodgates to a story or a certain time.” In a trial, the bespoke fragrances, which were given names such as 'Mom’s Cooking' and 'School Days,' did indeed succeed in either triggering memories or eliciting an emotional reaction in most patients.

The nexus of neuroscience and design is proving ripe territory for some serious innovation – in just the past month, we’ve written about Smirnoff’s Mind Tunes, which allows disabled people to create a club track with their mind, as well as artist Lisa Park’s Eunoia, in which the artist manipulated pools of water using only her brain. And while art and the experience economy certainly stand to benefit from richer, deeper connections yet to be pioneered, we hope to see the sort of empowering, quality-of-life improvements in the future.