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| March 01,2005 – SOSI Abstract Number: 5 Facts, Fallacies, Fears, and Frustrations With Human Pheromones, Craig B. Warren Drs. Charles Wysocki and George Preti, both of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, have researched the human pheromone issue for the past 25 years. Dr. Preti, an analytical chemist by training, has identified a number of the molecules thought to be human pheromones, and Dr. Wysocki, a physiologist by training, has studied their behavior in humans and has studied the receptors thought to be stimulated by human pheromones. This paper is a review of their contributions to this field and the field in general. Pheromones come in many colors, and are now classified as primers, signalers, modulators, and releasers. Wysocki and Preti describe each type in detail in their paper and suggest that there is good evidence for the former three in humans. Examples include affects on menstrual cycle (primer effects); olfactory recognition of newborn by its mother (signaler); individual may exude different odors based on mood (suggestive of modulator effects). However, there is no good evidence for releaser effects in adult humans and this is precisely the type of pheromones that the fragrance industry has yearned for over the past 30 years. A releaser pheromone is a chemical substance that elicits an immediate specific behavioral response. The example well known to the industry is androstenone, often called boar taint. Boar taint, which elicits mating behavior in sows that are in heat, was discovered in pig saliva in 1971 and in small quantities in human, male underarm secretions around 1975. This threw the industry into a speculative frenzy about the existence of a molecule that rendered one human irresistible to another. Wysocki and Preti tell us that to date such a molecule has not been found. This has not dampened the public’s desire to buy and sell such molecules as shown by a Google search of the keywords, “Human Pheromone” (include the quotation marks) which yielded 46,100 hits, whereas a search of Google Scholar, which includes only peer reviewed journals, yielded 65 hits. Wysocki and Preti’s paper is a wonderful starting place for the researcher with an interest in human pheromones. The Pub Med abstract and the full paper are available online (see links in reference below). We also urge you to review SOSI’s Virtual Library under the topic heading Pheromone. The Virtual Library Pheromone section (http://www.senseofsmell.org/resources/scientific.php?value=Pheromones) is now updated to February, 2005, and includes a good cross section of the key human pheromone papers. The references included in the library all have abstracts with full papers available for about 30%. For the marketer interested in how the academic research has been converted into products, we recommend Google using the key words “Human Pheromone”. Wysocki, C.J. & Preti, G. Facts, fallacies, fears, and frustrations with human pheromones. Anat Rec, 2004 Nov,281A(1): 1201-11 Pub Med Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=15470677 Full Article: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/109671901/PDFSTART |
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