15 May Meet Monell: Kevin Bolding … Making Smell Memories

At the Monell Chemical Senses Center, scientists study something we often take for granted: how our senses shape the way we experience the world. For Dr. Kevin Bolding, that work begins with a simple question: how does the brain form memories?

At Monell, Bolding leads a neuroscience lab focused on smell, or olfaction. But his research goes beyond identifying odors, it explores how the brain learns from them. Every time you encounter a new scent, your brain forms a memory that helps guide future decisions, from what’s safe to eat to what feels familiar or comforting, all basic processes necessary to our survival.

“Memory is obviously important. We use our memories to make our way through the world. They also make up an important part of our identity” he explains.
According to Bolding, the olfactory system is one of the best ways to study how learning happens in the brain. Animals can learn smells quickly, allowing researchers to observe how brain activity changes during the learning process. Now, his research is expanding toward the complexity of real-world scents.

In everyday life, we don’t experience just one smell at a time, most scents are made up of many molecules combined. Food, for example, is a mixture of multiple odors rather than a single one.

Bolding’s lab is working to understand how the brain processes these odor mixtures and turns them into meaningful perceptions. This includes studying how animals use smell to find food, recognize others, and navigate their environment.

“There’s a spatial element to the search for food. How is it found? Where is it found? How much of it is there in the world? These are things that we need to really understand.”

One of the lab’s most exciting research areas focuses on what happens the very first time a new smell is encountered. By tracking changes in brain activity, Bolding’s team can watch new memories form and study how they begin to influence behavior.

Looking ahead, Bolding hopes his research will expand existing knowledge of diseases that impact our sense of smell and the brain systems connected to it. By understanding how these systems normally function, scientists will be able to take key steps toward developing future treatments.

“When you invest in Monell, you invest in the ability of people to do this work, to uncover fundamental rules and mechanisms and aspects of how the chemical senses work. And when we know those things, we have the opportunity to make advances towards improving health outcomes.”