Summary
This one’s a bit of an older white paper (2009), so clearly there’s been some advances in the past five years. I saw that someone else had posted this here at PheroTalk a few years back, but the link is dead.
Some key points here is that the results of most pheromone technology is over-exaggerated, and that no one molecule has definitively been shown to directly influence sociobehavioral engagements between humans. In addition, molecules that are purported to influence the vomeronasal organ (VNO) should be viewed with skepticism - some evidence shows that humans do have a VNO, only that it’s not currently functional in our physiological system, and simply serves as a neurological place-holder during human development. The presence of a VNO is still hotly debated.
Vomeronasal Organ Wikipedia Entry
That being said, lacking a VNO doesn’t rule out that humans do not generate and react to pheromones at all. And other molecules that do not belong to the pheromone class may have a much greater impact on human behavior than previously suggested, mostly due to imprinting of odors onto the learning and memory cognitive streams.
An important class of pheromone-type molecules are known as modulators, and they have been reported in the literature to have the ability to modify the social contexts of people around them. Given the reports of those on the forum about their experience with pheromones, these seem to be the more important class as we have seen that humans don’t necessarily respond to the opposite sex with blind arousal under the influence of these chemicals.
Citation
Wysocki, C.J.; Preti, G. (2010) Human pheromones: What’s purported, what’s supported. A Sense of Smell Institute White Paper. The Fragrance Foundation: New York.
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