In French author Marcel Proust’s 1906 novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) a bite of madeleine cake triggers a flood of childhood memories. Scientists call this phenomenon “Proust’s madeleine,” and it was even featured on The Sopranos. Now a study in PLOS Biology suggests these vivid memories of early childhood smells are encoded in very specific parts of the brain. Mandairon’s team surveyed more than 600 volunteers and found that most had remembered pleasant childhood experiences from the “Proust’s madeleine” phenomenon. But he would have liked to see it account for negative childhood memories as well because “unpleasantness is equally significant.”