Why do certain scents trigger memories?

It appears the nerves associated with "smell" link to the "Entorhinal Cortex" a structure in the brain that pairs smell with memory

I assume as humans are wide roaming and omnivorous, evolution favoured brains able to remember what situations, food,danger etc, were associated with particular smells

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_system

I work as a Microbiologist and one organism I occasionally isolate (about every 18months or so) is Chryseobacterium menigosepticum .When growing on an agar plate it gives a very particular aroma, that when I smell it places me in the Lingerie Dept of a local department store about the mid 1970s. At that time I was about 9 and the quickest way to the toy department on the top floor of one building was across a footbridge enclosed in glass linking two of the stores many buildings. Crossing the bridge brought you straight into the Lingerie Department (on a floor below the toy deptment) and you would immediately smell this particular smell.

An older work colleague has pointed out the the smell was in fact made by a compressed air generator housed out of sight near the Lingerie dept. The store operated a system of tubes in which capsules containing information could be blow from dept to dept by means of compressed air

Every time I smell this bacteria I have a vivid memory of being surrounded by manikins twice my height dressed in lacy underwear. This image has absolutely no erotic content as at the time I had far more interest in Lego and model aeroplanes

Much like an image of something triggering a memory, a smell or sound can do the same thing to the brain. The brain stores that information into memory.

Example: Smell of gingerbread always reminds me of my visits to the pediatrician.

scent can create effective memories of position. i develop into strolling into an workplace tower in Florida 1000 miles from the position I grew up and excellent away develop into reminded of my grandmother's the front porch on a warmth early summer season day of my adolescents 40 years beforehand. It develop into so effective I had to stop. And imagine. sure it develop into the scent - yet what develop into the scent? Pipe tobacco smoke and accomplice jasmine. The progression had purely banned smoking and the human beings who smoke were putting out contained in the colour of crepe myrtles alongside a fence of accomplice jasmine. a ideal replace for the pipe tobacco of my grandfather and my grandmother's lush lilacs surrounding the porch.

The smell of a box hedge warmed by the sun, always take me back half a century to my grandfather's garden.

Our olfactory senses are just as keen memory jerkers as sight and sound.

theres this certain smell that reminds me of school (not good memories btw) i think it must be some kind of widely used cleaner

oh wait, u wanted a reason. um...your brain i guess, brains are weird

LOL It's true. I can't explain scientifically, but bacon makes me think of my dad, roses my grandma, Tide my aunt, and beer, my uncle!!! lol

The scents of privet and mint take me back to my nana's garden.