Psychoneuroimmunlogical correlates

This

is about as technical as it gets. Simply put, it's more support for the concept of pheromones and their affect on

sexual orientation.



http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/(kkigp445vq5ox

z2vlyy0ej55)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,14,1 8;journal,2,215;linkingpublicationresults,1:

102024,1

Abstract:

Studies on subjective body odour ratings suggest that humans exhibit preferences

for human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-dissimilar persons. However, with regard to the extreme polymorphism of the HLA

gene loci, the behavioural impact of the proposed HLA-related attracting signals seems to be minimal. Furthermore,

the role of HLA-related chemosignals in same- and opposite-sex relations in humans has not been specified so far.

Here, we investigate subjective preferences and brain evoked responses to body odours in males and females as a

function of HLA similarity between odour donor and smeller. We show that pre-attentive processing of body odours of

HLA-similar donors is faster and that late evaluative processing of these chemosignals activates more neuronal

resources than the processing of body odours of HLA-dissimilar donors. In same-sex smelling conditions,

HLA-associated brain responses show a different local distribution in male (frontal) and female subjects (parietal).

The electrophysiological results are supported by significant correlations between the odour ratings and the

amplitudes of the brain potentials. We conclude that odours of HLA-similar persons function as important social

warning signals in inter- and intrasexual human relations. Such HLA-related chemosignals may contribute to female

and male mate choice as well as to male competitive behaviour.

Discussion on this topic can be found by

clicking here.