So, I gather that the primary function of pheromones, or rather male axillary pheromones, are to serve as a beacon to advertise sexual value, especially high testosterone levels (which to a degree goes hand-in-hand with physical fitness, social dominance, or other desirable traits)…
So my question is, is it possible that there are pheromones that exist specifically to warn that someone is unhealthy or otherwise biologically undesirable?
Yes there is.
There are fear mones as well as mones that indicate dis-ease or unhealthy. Generally they are not sold in the attraction arena but certain mones misused can result in negative messages.
Tisha
Yes, the first that comes to mind is the alarm pheromones in ants. Alarm Pheromone Processing in the Ant Brain: An Evolutionary Perspective
Ants also lay trails, ever notice them walking rank and file? That’s a scent the scout leaves. Trail Pheromone of the Argentine Ant
People have alarm pheromones as well. That’s why fear is often contagious. Its also why animals can sense your fear even when you try not to show it.
Tisha
Rutgers Scientists Say Fearful Memories Can Trigger Heightened Sense of Smell
A VERY Interesting note along these lines just came out.
I’ll post the article in its entirety here. Go visit the author and give kudos, here: Sniffing Out Danger: Rutgers Scientists Say Fearful Memories Can Trigger Heightened Sense of Smell | Media Relations
Sniffing Out Danger: Rutgers Scientists Say Fearful Memories Can Trigger Heightened Sense of Smell
Findings could provide better understanding of anxiety disorders like PTSD
Thursday, December 12, 2013
By Robin Lally
Media Contact: Robin Lally
732-932-7084 x652
rlally@ucm.rutgers.edu
Most people - including scientists - assumed we can’t just sniff out danger.
It was thought that we become afraid of an odor – such as leaking gas – only after information about a scary scent is processed by our brain.
Fearful memories can influence the sense of smell Rutgers scientists discovered.
But neuroscientists at Rutgers University studying the olfactory – sense of smell – system in mice have discovered that this fear reaction can occur at the sensory level, even before the brain has the opportunity to interpret that the odor could mean trouble. In a new study published today in Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6164/1389.full?sid=434f9e5a-2f7f-4a9e-849e-cced8d63fb41), John McGann, associate professor of behavioral and systems neuroscience in the Department of Psychology, and his colleagues, report that neurons in the noses of laboratory animals reacted more strongly to threatening odors before the odor message was sent to the brain."“What is surprising is that we tend to think of learning as something that only happens deep in the brain after conscious awareness,” says McGann whose laboratory studies the sense of smell. “But now we see how the nervous system can become especially sensitive to threatening stimuli and that fear-learning can affect the signals passing from sensory organs to the brain.”
McGann and students Marley Kass and Michelle Rosenthal made this discovery by using light to observe activity in the brains of genetically engineered mice through a window in the mouse’s skull. They found that those mice that received an electric shock simultaneously with a specific odor showed an enhanced response to the smell in the cells in the nose, before the message was delivered to the neurons in the brain.
John McGann, associate professor of behavioral and systems neuroscience in the Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences.
This new research – which indicates that fearful memories can influence the senses – could help to better understand conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, in which feelings of anxiety and fear exist even though an individual is no longer in danger. “We know that anxiety disorders like PTSD can sometimes be triggered by smell, like the smell of diesel exhaust for a soldier,” says McGann who received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders for this research. “What this study does is gives us a new way of thinking about how this might happen.”
In their study, the scientists also discovered a heightened sensitivity to odors in the mice traumatized by shock. When these mice smelled the odor associated with the electrical shocks, the amount of neurotransmitter – chemicals that carry communications between nerve cells – released from the olfactory nerve into the brain was as big as if the odor were four times stronger than it actually was.
This created mice whose brains were hypersensitive to the fear-associated odors. Before now, scientists did not think that reward or punishment could influence how the sensory organs process information.
The next step in the continuing research, McGann says, is to determine whether the hypersensitivity to threatening odors can be reversed by using exposure therapy to teach the mice that the electrical shock is no longer associated with a specific odor. This could help develop a better understanding of fear learning that might someday lead to new therapeutic treatments for anxiety disorders in humans, he says.
For more Research News, click here.
As long as we are using pheromones for social engineering, are there pheromones on the market that do the opposite of what we are generally trying to achieve? For example you mostly want to be seen as more attractive and confident when you are present, but are there pheromones on the market that can be used to do the opposite? For example, one mix can be used to attract other people, create a relaxed atmosphere, etc., but then another can be left behind when you leave a situation that promotes unease or uncertainty in your absence. Anyone testing this area?
Lol… I had actually considered asking about this. The problems I see tho are. You would have to leave something behind… a scrap of paper with spray on it or something. which would hove to be destroyed when you came back. But you also need to think about others. Making people at uneasy just because you aren’t there is totally not cool, Highly manipulative and can be a HUGE liability.
There are instances where it could be ethical and beneficial to use WITH EXTREME CAUTION, such as in hypno-therapy. There are other applications I can think of as well but those I’d rather not discuss. Mainly military applications. And I would try to keep those as low key as possible at all costs. If done right it’s a BOON to the research and advancement of mone-tech. If done wrong it could be no better than the sports industry starting to make use of them… Which is incidentally one of the best ways to get them BANNED and OVER-Regulated. THUS ruining the fun for all of us as well as making R+D costs Skyrocket.
Dabbling with those types of mones needs to be done VERY discretely IMHO. Else the risk of legislative fallout and or news media slander of ALL mone users (not just the “bad” ones) becomes functionally debilitating.
It’s one of those IF “Bad Mones” were to be allowed to be tested… Test it out carefully and in private or private company only to limit potential liability… TELL NO-ONE other than in your reports. Make your reports private. As for getting the testing materials that’s up to them to decide who they think they can trust. All it can take is 1 slip up. And BOOM goes the dynamite, all up in every ones faces. Not just the tester.
All of the above is a HUGE risk to take. Which is probably why you don’t see them doing tests of this nature. That’s not to say the tests aren’t happening. They may be I don’t know. And that’s as it should be.
It would be interesting to see how some of these mones react as steering agents tho.