Page 64 - The Miracles of Smell and Taste

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served over the years? Where is the data bank
stored, with its very large capacity for informa-
tion on thousands of different aromas? The answers
are not yet known for certain. But information regarding

smells is believed to be collected in the brain’s hippocampus and
51
amygdala. (Figure 19)
Results of research on this subject are clear: Your memory serves as a
data bank of aromas throughout your life, so long as you suffer no serious
illness or accident. Furthermore, it has an active structure rather than a
stable one, and renews itself constantly in the light of new experiences. 52
Information about a substance you smell for the first time is recorded in
memory, making it easy for you to recognize it when you next come
across it. Note that cells made up of proteins constitute your olfactory
memory, establishing an extensive archive and expanding it as new smells
are encountered. As a small comparison, your computer cannot spontane-
ously update itself. It will remain as it is until you load new programs on-
to it. Neither did the archival property of the scent memory cells come in-
to being spontaneously. God created them, and their superior design is

one of the countless proofs of His mercy
and the way that His knowledge enfolds
all things. (Surah Ghafir: 7)
One important feature
distinguishes olfactory mem-
ory from visual and audio

The Miracles of Smell and
Taste