is dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, and legal protection of individuals correcting the misalignment of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition into society.

Join The Flow!

Email

Add to Google

Follow us on Twitter

Bookmark and Share
Leave a comment.
TS-Si supports open access to publicly funded research.

TS-Si supports
open access to
publicly funded research
Female Brains Recognize and Encode Smell of Male Sexual Sweat Print E-mail
SciMed - Neuroscience
TS-Si News Service   
Friday, 09 January 2009 15:00
Female Brains Recognize and Encode Smell of Male Sexual SweatHouston, TX, USA. In biology, a chemosignal, or pheromone, is a chemical secretion that affects the development or behavior of other members of the same species. This observation has spawned studies to pin down just how the body's chemical scretions can convey emotional states and social cues. That is, we exude information.
 
We know that pheromones often function as a means of attracting a member of the opposite sex, but what about the big picture, the one that includes — but is not limited to — sex? A new study by Rice University researchers, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that socioemotional meanings, including sexual ones, are conveyed in human sweat.
 
The hippocampus is part of the limbic system and plays a part in memory and spatial navigation. It is located inside the medial temporal lobe of the brain.  
The hippocampus is structurally located inside the medial temporal lobe of the brain. (In this illustration of the underside of the brain, the frontal lobe of the brain is at the top, while the occipital lobe is at the bottom.)
The illustration shows the underside of the brain, with the frontal lobe at the top and the occipital lobe at the bottom.
The name hippocampus derives from its curved shape in coronal sections of the brain, which resembles a seahorse (Greek: hippos = horse, kampi = curve).
Recent research shows the hippocampus is important for stress and learning interactions. It is necessary for modifying learning in males and females after acute stressful experience. (Bangasser & Tracey J Shors, 2007).
 
It is one of a number of brain regions that differ significantly in size between men and women. This has led many people to think that such variations result in sex differences in function and behavior, such as memory and emotionality. 
 
For example, part of the hippocampus at the center of the brain and other areas at the front of the brain contribute to short-term memory. They are larger in women. Does this mean they have better working memories?
 
Other areas, thought to be seats of mating and arousal, grow larger in males, leading to conclusions that men are more aggressive. However, this is not always the case since size alone does not drive function.
 
Tests show that female and male brains can take different actions to arrive at the same behavioral response.  While brain activity differs between sexes, short-term memory performance is the same.
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.
 
Female Brains Recognize and Encode Smell of Male Sexual SweatHumans 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.
 
Scientists have long known that animals use scent to communicate, but investigations have been limited. Humans have ben thought to most often express emotions via faces, voices, and gestures. Chen's study represents an effort to expand knowledge of how the human 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), the first such observational study of human social chemosignals.
 
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. "Her observations will not come as news to most women. 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."
 
The understanding of human smell at the neural level is still at the beginning stage and will benefit from additional work using even more detailed neuroscience tools that examine the brain's pathways at a much lower level.
FundingThe research was supported in part by the U. S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
AuthorsThe research was co-authored by Denise Chen and Wen Zhou, the latter a graduate student in the Psychology Department at Rice University.
CitationEncoding Human Sexual Chemosensory Cues in the Orbitofrontal and Fusiform Cortices. Wen Zhou and Denise Chen. Journal of Neuroscience 28(53): 14416-14421. doi: 10.1523 / JNEUROSCI.3148-08.2008

Abstract

Chemosensory communication of affect and motivation is ubiquitous among animals. In humans, emotional expressions are naturally associated with faces and voices. Whether chemical signals play a role as well has hardly been addressed. Here, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that the right orbitofrontal cortex, right fusiform cortex, and right hypothalamus respond to airborne natural human sexual sweat, indicating that this particular chemosensory compound is encoded holistically in the brain. Our findings provide neural evidence that socioemotional meanings, including the sexual ones, are conveyed in the human sweat.
 

TS-Si News Service

The TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. We welcome your comments.

Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.


Digg! Reddit! Del.icio.us! Mixx! Free and Open Source Software News Google! Live! Facebook! Slashdot! Technorati! StumbleUpon! MySpace! Spurl! Simpy! Newsvine! Blinklist! Furl! Fark! Blogmarks! Yahoo! Netvouz! Free Joomla PHP extensions, software, information and tutorials.

Add this page to your favorite social bookmarking websites.

Quote this article on your site

To create link towards this article on your website,
copy and paste the text below in your page.



Preview :

Female Brains Recognize and Encode Smell of Male Sexual Sweat
Friday, 09 January 2009

Comments (0)Add Comment
feedSubscribe to this comment's feed
min/maxShow/Hide comments

Write comment
feedShow/Hide comment form

busy
< Prev   Next >
Last Updated on Friday, 09 January 2009 06:19