Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered that scents stimulate specific cells in the brain and may play a role in rapid decision-making. Researchers have discovered a new function of the hippocampus in decision- making, showing that certain cells in the brain, known as 'time cells', are stimulated by odors to facilitate quick decision-making. By tracking the activation of these cells in response to odors. It's found that smell is a stimulus that is transmitted through the nose to send nerve signals to the olfactory bulb and to the hippocampus. The two devices are closely linked. Information is processed quickly and the brain makes a decision based on the input. The team revealed a direct link between odor, hippocampal function, and associative learning, suggesting that these cells play a critical role beyond memory retrieval, and directly influence decision-making in the brain. This study shows how rats learned to associate fruity odors with reward, resulting in faster and more efficient decision-making. The scientists focused on the hippocampus, an area of ​​the brain important for memory and learning. They knew that so-called “time cells” played a key role in hippocampal function, but they did not know their role in associative learning. The hippocampus turns on time cells to predict a decision, which would give you a glimpse into what you should remember.” “In the past, it was thought that time cells only remind you of events and time, and here we see the memory is encoded in neurons and then immediately retrieved when a decision is made.”