If you’ve ever smelled freshly cut grass or the air on a fall day and felt the familiar rush of a memory, you’ve experienced the connection between the olfactory system and regions of the brain involved in memory, emotion, and learning.
This connection begs the question: Could certain scents influence how the brain forms and retrieves memories?
Studies have investigated essential oils and aromatherapy for their potential effects on attention, memory, mood, sleep, and other aspects of cognitive function. There are a variety of findings that could impact how we treat these functions moving forward.
Table of Contents
Why Does Smell Have a Strong Connection to Memory?
The relationship between smell and memory starts with the way the brain processes odors. When you inhale something with an aroma, receptors in your nose send information to the brain.
Those signals don’t just get recognized and forgotten, though. They reach areas of the brain involved in processing emotion (the amygdala) and memory (the hippocampus). This helps explain why a familiar scent can bring back a vivid memory, and why researchers are considering the potential to influence cognitive processes.
One 2025 review describes this known activation through the use of essential oils, but it also discusses potential interactions with neurotransmitter systems including serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. This leads to the potential impact of aromatherapy on more than memory and general feelings. It also has an impact on the finer details of our emotions, such as how calm, focused, or alert we are.
Essential Oils May Affect More Than Memory
Researchers have also investigated whether essential oils can influence:
- Attention and focus
- Alertness
- Learning
- Memory retention
- Anxiety and mood
- Sleep
- Agitation and other behavioral symptoms
There is an important distinction between cognition and these other factors, because an improvement in cognitive performance doesn’t necessarily mean an essential oil is directly changing memory formation.
For example, if a scent reduces anxiety or helps someone sleep better, that person may subsequently find it easier to concentrate. In that case, the cognitive benefit could be indirect.
The dementia research illustrates this through evidence suggesting that aromatherapy may help with symptoms such as agitation, anxiety, sleep disturbance, and other behavioral symptoms. It also describes studies that specifically examine cognitive performance itself. This interconnection might look like improving things like sleep and emotional state to potentially impact how well someone thinks and remembers.
Do Different Scents Accomplish Different Things?
A literature review examining aromatherapy and learning identifies peppermint, rosemary, and lavender as three scents of particular interest for cognitive function.
Rosemary
The review describes research suggesting that rosemary’s aroma can improve the speed and accuracy of memory-related tasks. It specifically highlights 1,8-cineole, a major compound in rosemary, as a possible contributor to these effects, based on research finding a relationship between blood levels of the compound after rosemary exposure and performance on cognitive tasks.
Peppermint
The review describes peppermint as being associated with increased alertness and reduced mental fatigue, potentially making it useful when trying to improve attention span. It cites research in which participants exposed to peppermint aroma had measurable improvements in alertness and attention, including performance on tasks requiring sustained concentration.
Lavender
Lavender is widely known for its calming effects. The dementia review has examined lavender for symptoms including agitation and sleep disruption, while the literature review describes it as potentially anxiety-reducing, creating conditions more conducive to learning.
The distinction is important because the scent might not make someone more alert, but the benefit might come from reducing unfavorable circumstances and moods that are known to interfere with concentration and memory.
An Uncommon Aroma Used for Rats
One of the more recent studies looked at an essential oil that isn’t usually the first one people associate with essential oils or aromatherapy: Tanacetum vulgare, or common tansy.
This 2026 study looked at the effects of this essential oil in rats over a 28-day period. Researchers administered two different doses and then evaluated them through behavioral tests designed to measure different aspects of learning and memory.
Both doses improved short-term and long-term memory in one test, but the lower dose seemed to be even more effective. They both improved spatial memory (recalling layouts/locations) and recognition memory (identifying familiar objects or events), though the higher dose triggered better passive learning (absorbing info without active effort).
So the rats weren’t simply performing better on one test, but across several.
BDNF & the Hippocampus
The researchers also found that the essential oil significantly increased expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, in the hippocampus.
BDNF is a protein that plays an important role in neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to change, strengthen connections, and adapt in response to experiences. The hippocampus is particularly important for learning and memory, and it’s where the researchers found the increase.
It doesn’t show that this is what caused the improvements, but it offers plausible reasoning and potential for an enhanced process in learning and memory.
The Potential for Dementia Patients
The potential relationship between essential oils and cognition becomes especially interesting when we look at dementia.
The 2025 review examined more than 100 sources on essential oils and dementia. It describes studies investigating aromatherapy for symptoms such as agitation, aggression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and cognitive impairment. Some of which were promising.
For example, one study exposed people with dementia to combinations of lemon and rosemary aromas in the morning and lavender and orange aromas later in the day. After the aromatherapy, researchers reported improvements in some measures of cognitive function, particularly among people with mild Alzheimer’s disease.
But the evidence isn’t always entirely positive.
Some controlled studies have found little or no significant difference between essential-oil and control groups for particular outcomes. In one study involving lavender, for example, behavioral symptoms improved on several measures, but scores on a standard cognitive test remained unchanged.
So Can Essential Oils Improve Memory?
Because there is not enough definitive research to say it’s been proven, suffice to say the existing evidence is promising.
Animal research is just that–research done on animals, not humans. Studies show time and again how, despite the incredible findings that come from animal data, there are significant differences between animals and humans that must be accounted for and further studied.
The other reviews make for a complex navigation of aromatherapy’s impact on human cognitive functions and point to essential oils being an intriguing area of study rather than a therapy.
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As with anything you read on the internet, this article should not be construed as medical advice; please talk to your doctor or primary care provider before changing your wellness routine. WHN neither agrees nor disagrees with any of the materials posted. This article is not intended to provide a medical diagnosis, recommendation, treatment, or endorsement. Additionally, it is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
