Several studies have demonstrated that Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated not only with difficulty in remembering past events but also with a compromised ability to imagine future ones. Recent empirical research has also demonstrated that odor is an effective cue to alleviate difficulty in remembering past events in AD. We investigated whether odor exposure would help AD patients to imagine future events. To this end, we invited AD patients and control participants to evoke past and future events after odor exposure or without odor. Analysis showed that AD patients and control participants produced more specific and more emotional past and future events after odor exposure than without odor. However, odor exposure did not improve the retrieval time for future thinking in AD participants. This study is the first to demonstrate positive effects of odor exposure on the ability of AD patients to project themselves into the future.

中文翻译：

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嗅觉刺激对阿尔茨海默氏病过去和未来思维的影响。

多项研究表明，阿尔茨海默氏病（AD）不仅与记忆过去的事件有关，而且与想象未来事件的能力受损有关。最近的经验研究还表明，气味是减轻记忆AD过去事件的困难的有效提示。我们调查了气味暴露是否会帮助AD患者想象未来的事件。为此，我们邀请AD患者和对照组参与者在接触气味或无气味后唤起过去和将来的事件。分析表明，与无异味接触相比，AD患者和对照组参与者在接触异味后产生的过去和未来事件更具特异性和情感性。但是，气味的暴露并不能提高AD参与者未来思考的检索时间。