(Medical Xpress) — Our senses aren’t just delivering a strict view of what’s going on in the world; they’re affected by what’s going on in our heads. A new study finds that hungry people see food-related words more clearly than people who’ve just eaten.
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My comment:
What’s inside each organism from microbes to man are intracellular signaling pathways. These pathways are activated by nutrient chemicals that cause gene expression linked to the metabolism of nutrients. Nutrient metabolism is required for the organism’s ongoing proper selection of chemicals that ensure its survival. Proper selection for metabolites expressed as chemical signals of self and non-self recognition enable speciation. No other sensory input and no brain is required, only genetic predisposition, the epigenetic influence of chemicals, and the ligand-receptor binding common to the chemical senses across all species.
Biologists are becoming more familiar with these processes, which many psychologists seem to think require a brain and perception. But the processes involved exemplify a “no-brainer” approach to understanding the biology of evolved human behaviors, which also require ligand-receptor binding for activation. Food odors and pheromones are ligand that activate odor receptors. The transduction of a chemical signal to electrical signals, which are the common language of the brain, allows odors to directly effect hormones that affect behavior. But the same transduction occurs and alters behavior even in organisms with no brain.
James Vaughn Kohl was the first to accurately conceptualize human pheromones, and began presenting his findings to the scientific community in 1992. He continues to present to, and publish for, diverse scientific and lay audiences, while constantly monitoring the scientific presses for new information that is relevant to the development of his initial and ongoing conceptualization of human pheromones.
Recently, Kohl integrated scientific evidence that pinpoints the evolved neurophysiological mechanism that links olfactory/pheromonal input to genes in hormone-secreting cells of tissue in a specific area of the brain that is primarily involved in the sensory integration of olfactory and visual input, and in the development of human sexual preferences. His award-winning 2007 article/book chapter on multisensory integration: The Mind’s Eyes: Human pheromones, neuroscience, and male sexual preferences followed an award winning 2001 publication: Human pheromones: integrating neuroendocrinology and ethology, which was coauthored by disinguished researchers from Vienna. Rarely do researchers win awards in multiple disciplines, but Kohl’s 2001 award was for neuroscience, and his 2007 “Reiss Theory” award was for social science.
Kohl has worked as a medical laboratory scientist since 1974, and he has devoted more than twenty-five years to researching the relationship between the sense of smell and the development of human sexual preferences. Unlike many researchers who work with non-human subjects, medical laboratory scientists use the latest technology from many scientific disciplines to perform a variety of specialized diagnostic medical testing on people.
James V. Kohl is certified with:
* American Society for Clinical Pathology
* American Medical Technologists
James V. Kohl is a member of:
* Society for Neuroscience
* Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology
* Association for Chemoreception Sciences
* Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality
* International Society for Human Ethology
* American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science
* Mensa, the international high IQ society
