The Human Brain How Nostalgia Works Prev NEXT -- * Nostalgia and Your Brain Nostalgia runs high in transitional age ranges: the teens through 20s and over 50 (from "middle-aged" to "senior"). " Nostalgia runs high in transitional age ranges: the teens through 20s and over 50 (from "middle-aged" to "senior"). " Nostalgia runs high in transitional age ranges: the teens through 20s and over 50 (from "middle-aged" to "senior"). Image Source/Getty Images External triggers for nostalgia are easy to recognize. Looking at old pictures, reminiscing about old times or meeting up with a long-lost friend will all get you to wistful longing. -- hormones" at work in the brain [source: Stern]. Not a lot is known about the brain's role in nostalgia, but it seems to involve connections between stored emotions and memories [source: Ostashevsy]. Researchers have connected music-triggered nostalgia with increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is activated when we retrieve autobiographical memories [source: Janata]. Tastes may induce nostalgia in part because the neural pathways carrying information from the taste buds ultimately lead in part to the limbic system [source: Murray]. Scent data lands there, too. -- (amygdala) and the "emotional memories" that result when a memory is stored during a highly emotional state [sources: Ostashevsy, Phelps, Levit]. Scent seems to elicit a stronger sense of nostalgia, as well as a more positive and emotional episode, than other triggers [source: Reid]. Might be because the olfactory bulb, which processes smell data -- travel at all to reach our stored emotional memories. We typically think of nostalgia triggers along the lines of these types of sensory inputs. Yet one of the most common nostalgia triggers has no sensory component at all. -- (BUTTON) Copy Julia Layton "How Nostalgia Works" 3 June 2015. HowStuffWorks.com.