How do we manage to remember smells despite the fact that each olfactory sensory neuron only survives for about 60 days and is then replaced by a new cell?
“when an olfactory sensory neuron expressing a particular receptor gene dies and a new neuron expressing that same gene matures, the new neuron's axons plug in to the same group of olfactory bulb neurons that its predecessor did.” 1
Linda B. Buck and Richard Axel who were the Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine in 2004 found out this but also gave an solution to it, which they claimed that the pattern of activity within the olfactory system remains relatively constant because the pattern is processed and remembered by neural circuits in the olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex.
This inspired and motivated me to create the scents of both cities, to help me memorise and let the audience experience my feelings.
1 Scientific American. (2018). How do we manage to remember smells despite the fact that each olfactory sensory neuron only survives for about 60 days and is then replaced by a new cell? Retrieved from