Conditioning Smell Sensitivity Changes Brains

Gisela Telis reports that Northwestern University researchers have shown for the first time that people can quickly learn to distinguish between almost-identical smells if choosing incorrectly nets them a nasty shock. This study showsa that people can learn to distinguish various smells and alter their brain. Researchers scanned with an MRI the smell centers of subjects’ brains as they distinguished between two pairs of subtly different smells, and as a slight electric shock accompanied one of the smells. They couldn’t distinguish any of the molecules before the shock, but almost all could by six jolts later. Their brains also responded differently to each smell in the pair that included the shock, while their sensitivity and brain response to the other pair didn’t change. Hmm, conditioning exists! That’s major stuff! I wonder what other implications, beyond the obvious use of electric shock treatments (that I do not support) this study has for school teaching-learning processes.