Excerpt: We observed that exposure to body odor collected from senders of chemosignals in a happy state induced a facial expression and perceptual-processing style indicative of happiness in the receivers of those signals. Our findings suggest that not only negative affect but also a positive state (happiness) can be transferred by means of odors.
Reported as: A sniff of happiness: Chemicals in sweat may convey positive emotion
“This is another step in our general model on the communicative function of human sweat, and we are continuing to refine it to understand the neurological effects that human sweat has on recipients of these chemical compounds,” Semin concludes.
2012 Chemosignals Communicate Human Emotions
2013 The chemical bases of human sociality
2014 The effects of odour and body posture on perceived duration
2015 The smelling of Hedione results in sex-differentiated human brain activity Excerpt: “Genetic variations of chemoreceptors caused by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that result in an amino acid change (S201F; A229D), were described for VN1R1 (Rodriguez et al., 2000).”
Rodriguez et al., (2000 A putative pheromone receptor gene expressed in human olfactory mucosa
My comment: The idea that SNPs result in amino acid substitutions and genetic variations in odor receptors is one reason why I frequently cite Dobzhansky (1973): Nothing in Biology Makes Any Sense Except in the Light of Evolution. He wrote: “…the so-called alpha chains of hemoglobin have identical sequences of amino acids in man and the chimpanzee, but they differ in a single amino acid (out of 141) in the gorilla” (p. 127).
In my model, I linked food odors and human pheromones via one SNP that results in an amino acid change that differentiates the cell types of mice and the cell types of a modern human population in what is now central China. See: Nutrient-dependent/pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution: a model.
Excerpt: Two additional recent reports link substitution of the amino acid alanine for the amino acid valine (Grossman et al., 2013) to nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution. The alanine substitution for valine does not appear to be under any selection pressure in mice. The cause-and-effect relationship was established in mice by comparing the effects of the alanine, which is under selection pressure in humans, via its substitution for valine in mice (Kamberov et al., 2013).
These two reports (Grossman et al., 2013; Kamberov et al., 2013) tell a new short story of adaptive evolution. The story begins with what was probably a nutrient-dependent variant allele that arose in central China approximately 30,000 years ago. The effect of the allele is adaptive and it is manifested in the context of an effect on sweat, skin, hair, and teeth. In other mammals, like the mouse, the effect on sweat, skin, hair, and teeth is due to an epigenetic effect of nutrients on hormones responsible for the tweaking of immense gene networks that metabolize nutrients to pheromones. The pheromones control the nutrient-dependent hormone-dependent organization and activation of reproductive sexual behavior in mammals such as mice and humans, but also in invertebrates as previously indicated. That means the adaptive evolution of the human population, which is detailed in these two reports, is also likely to be nutrient-dependent and pheromone-controlled, since there is no other model for that.
My comment: Unlike Hummel’s group, Semin’s group includes all the details of my model without use of the term pheromone. The question arises: If they were discussing differences in food preferences of different species, would they confuse people by claiming that the food odors were not food odors in different species?
If human pheromones is not the term that should be used in the context of biologically-based cause and effect, what should we call the food odors that link the metabolism of nutrients to the epigenetic effects of pheromones on species from microbes to man via the biophysically constrained chemistry of RNA-mediated amino acid substitutions and protein folding?
