Studies have shown that smell is the strongest memory of the brain. A scent that you smell years ago can trigger a memory that you thought you had forgotten. The brain has different profiles and can trigger strong emotions. A museum was even opened to focus on smells as a true artistic medium.
With the introduction of devices like the Oculus Rift, humans are leaning toward a field of virtual reality. It creates a whole new world for a person that could fool them into believing different experiences and reactions. You enter an immersive world that replicates the world and recreate sensory experiences. Its an exciting field that could in the future lead to skydiving inside your own home.
References
Neuroscience pt 3. Dr. Victoria Vesna. Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 16 May. 2012. Web. 17 May. 2015.
Neuroscience- Mark Cohen. Dr. Victoria Vesna. Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 16 May. 2012. Web. 17 May. 2015.
Dowdey, Sarah. "How Smell Works" 29 October 2007. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/smell.htm> 17 May 2015.
"14 Common Dreams and Symbols and Why They're Important." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 Jan. 2014. Web. 18 May 2015.
Stamp, Jimmy. "The First Major Museum Show to Focus on Smell." Smithsonian. 16 Jan. 2013. Web. 18 May 2015. .
I agree with you about neuroscience of smell, nose has millions of olfactory receptor neurons and each receptor expresses just one out of these thousand different types, and thus respond to only a subset of all the odors out there in the world. Though cells expressing these different receptor types are more-or-less mixed together in the nose, as they send their axons back to the brain's olfactory bulb they sort themselves out in a remarkable fashion so that all of the neurons expressing a particular receptor type project to just one or two spots, which are called glomeruli. It is crazy that even smelling something can bring back the old memory whether good or bad.
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