New study by Rice University psychologist finds women's brains recognize, encode smell of male sexual sweatJanuary 08, 2009A new Rice University study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that socioemotional meanings, including sexual ones, are conveyed in human sweat. Denise Chen, assistant professor of psychology at Rice, looked at how the brains of female volunteers processed and encoded the smell of sexual sweat from men. The results of the experiment indicated the brain recognizes chemosensory communication, including human sexual sweat. Scientists have long known that animals use scent to communicate.
Chen's study represents an effort to expand knowledge of how humans' sense of smell complement their more powerful senses of sight and hearing. The experiment directly studied natural human sexual sweat using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Nineteen healthy female subjects inhaled olfactory stimuli from four sources, one of which was sweat gathered from sexually aroused males. The research showed that several parts of the brain are involved in processing the emotional value of the olfactory information. These include the right fusiform region, the right orbitofrontal cortex and the right hypothalamus. "With the exception of the hypothalamus, neither the orbitofrontal cortex nor the fusiform region is considered to be associated with sexual motivation and behavior," Chen said. "Our results imply that the chemosensory information from natural human sexual sweat is encoded more holistically in the brain rather than specifically for its sexual quality." Humans are evolved to respond to salient socioemotional information. Distinctive neural mechanisms underlie the processing of emotions in facial and vocal expressions. The findings help explain the neural mechanism for human social chemosignals. The understanding of human smell at the neural level is still at the beginning stage. The present work is the first fMRI study of human social chemosignals. The research, co-authored by Chen and Wen Zhou, graduate student in the Psychology Department, appeared in the December 31 issue of Journal of Neuroscience. The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health. Rice University Science News and Science Current Events Tag Cloud This tag cloud is a visual representation of term frequencies of random science news topics with common terms grouped together and emphasized by their display size. Academic Performance Infertility Dry Eye Syndrome Human Genome Human Brain Multiple Sclerosis Antimatter Cavities Metabolism Gold Nanoparticles Sea Level Mars Gene Mutation Prion Hubble Space Telescope Xmm-newton OCD Cistic Fibrosis Psoriasis Permafrost Mortality Rate Food Safety Antiretroviral Longevity Chocolate
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Related Sweat Current Events and Sweat News Articles Different genes cause loss of body parts in similar fish New research shows that when two species of stickleback fish evolved and lost their pelvises and body armor, the changes were caused by different genes in each species. New study finds lowfat chocolate milk is effective post-exercise recovery aid for soccer players Soccer players and exercise enthusiasts now have another reason to reach for lowfat chocolate milk after a hard workout. Teach your children well: Focused, happier kids grow up to be healthier adults, study finds Children who can stay focused and don't sweat the small stuff have a better shot at good health in adulthood -- and this is especially true for girls, according to a new study. Live-in domestics: Mites as maids in tropical rainforest sweat bee nests Mites not only inhabit the dust bunnies under the bed, they also occupy the nests of tropical sweat bees where they keep fungi in check. A woman's nose knows body odor It may be wise to trust the female nose when it comes to body odor. According to new research from the Monell Center, it is more difficult to mask underarm odor when women are doing the smelling. Diabetics on high-fiber diets might need extra calcium, report UT Southwestern researchers The amount of calcium your body absorbs might depend, in part, on the amount of dietary fiber you consume. Rice psychologist explores perception of fear in human sweat When threatened, many animals release chemicals as a warning signal to members of their own species, who in turn react to the signals and take action. Research by Rice University psychologist Denise Chen suggests a similar phenomenon occurs in humans. The lower atmosphere of Pluto revealed Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have gained valuable new insights about the atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto. The scientists found unexpectedly large amounts of methane in the atmosphere, and also discovered that the atmosphere is hotter than the surface by about 40 degrees, although it still only reaches a frigid minus 180 degrees Celsius. Xenophobia, For Men Only Very few people fear dandelions. Or even dangerous things - like Hummers. We may object to outsized automobiles on principle, but the mere sight of them doesn't make us tremble and sweat and run away. On the other hand, even toddlers show an automatic and powerful fear of snakes, including harmless ones. Amputees can experience prosthetic hand as their own Scientists at Karolinska Institutet and Lund University in Sweden have succeeded in inducing people with an amputated arm to experience a prosthetic rubber hand as belonging to their own body. The results can lead to the development of a new type of touch-sensitive prosthetic hands. More Sweat Current Events and Sweat News Articles |
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