Processing by the main olfactory system of chemosignals that facilitate mammalian reproduction
Excerpt: “…documents the essential role of the main olfactory system in the pheromonal facilitation of neuroendocrine and behavioral aspects of reproduction among a wide range of non-primate mammals.”
My comment: The article links mammalian pheromones to hormone-organized and hormone-activated behaviors via the secretion of luteinzing hormone (LH). The title of my first presentation in 1992 was Luteinizing hormone (LH): The link between sex and the sense of smell?
There is no mention of my series of published works, despite awards for Human pheromones: integrating neuroendocrinology and ethology and The Mind’s Eyes: Human pheromones, neuroscience, and male sexual preferences. Like others, these authors seem to not know how to link reports that androstenol epigenetically effects LH and that Male axillary extracts contain pheromones that affect pulsatile secretion of luteinizing hormone and mood in women recipients. This limits discussion of the facts reported in the following works by others.
Preference for human body odors is influenced by gender and sexual orientation
Androsterone-etiocholanolone ratios in male homosexuals
The authors conclude that “The future challenge for primate (including human) research is to establish the chemical identity of compounds that exert replicable pheromonal effects on reproduction and to improve imaging methods to the point that cellular analysis of the main olfactory circuits that process these pheromones is feasible.”
This confirms what Jaak Panksepp said: “My feeling is that the social brain has many levels. If you don’t understand the foundational level, then you can do brain imaging until you’re blue in the face, but you still will not understand the process at a deep causal level.”
There is no mention of our 2007 conference report that Androstenol/androsterone may condition a human hormonal effect/behavioral affect.
Abstract: Chemical signals communicate affective and motivational states by eliciting hormonal effects that translate to unconscious behavioral affects in non-human animals. In human females, androstenol elicits hormonal effects and, in a pilot study, androsterone appeared to elicit unconscious behavioral affects. Mammalian conditioning paradigms suggest that androstenol may condition hormonal effects that are unconsciously associated with the possible behavioral affects of androsterone. In this present study, we evaluated the interaction of ovulatory phase human female subjects with a male confederate who either applied or did not apply a standardized androstenol /androsterone mixture diluted in propylene glycol. We are determining whether study participants, and non-participants who rated the interactions, provide data that discriminate between the confederate’s two conditions in a cooperative task. After task completion, an odor assessment questionnaire was completed by the female participants with assessment of the subject’s mood by POMS. In addition, males and non-task females completed a questionnaire to determine whether odor assessment might be sexually dimorphic. Preliminary results suggest that combining the known hormonal effects of a putative human pheromone (e.g., androstenol) with the possible behavioral affects of androsterone may help to extend non-human animal models of sexually dimorphic chemical communication to humans. Final results will be presented at the conference.
We reported the replication of our results at the same conference in 2009: Putative Human Pheromones Increase Women’s Observed Flirtatious Behaviors and Ratings of Attraction
The focus on improved imaging methods attests to the likelihood that these authors have learned nothing at all about nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled cell type differentiation in species from microbes to man. They appear to have no concept of the fact that “Olfaction and odor receptors provide a clear evolutionary trail that can be followed from unicellular organisms to insects to humans…” They seem unaware that a model links ecological variation to ecological adaptations in all species: Nutrient-dependent/pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution: a model.
Alternatively, the authors and many other researchers might hope that others do not learn that in our 1996 Hormones and Behavior review article From Fertilization to Adult Sexual Behavior, we provided details on how mammalian pheromones and luteinizing hormone established the fact that cell type differentiation and hormone-organized and hormone-activated behaviors are epigenetically effected by pheromones in species from yeasts to humans. Michael Baum, in particular, may still want others to think that extending animal models of cell type differentiation to psychosexual differentiation in humans is not possible. See for example: Mammalian animal models of psychosexual differentiation: When is ‘translation’ to the human situation possible? However, the fact that The effects of perinatal testosterone exposure on the DNA methylome of the mouse brain are late-emerging extends what we wrote about pheromone-controlled alternative splicings of pre-mRNA to cell type differentiation by amino acid substitutions in species from microbes to man.
