“Human vomeronasal organ function: a critical review of best and worst cases.”
A 2001 review paper summarising all scientific research papers (up to 2001 of course) involving the VNO in humans. Am looking for a more updated resource - nothing we don’t already know here, but the paper does give an excellent detailed description of the VNO and pheromones.
Here’s the conclusion for those not wanting to read the whole 13 pages:
Best case: VNO is a minor but not insignificant contributor to human communication. More work by independent groups is needed to confirm the reported electrical and hormonal responses. The expression of a vomeronasal-type receptor gene in humans raises the possibility that such genes may underlie chemosensitivity in the vomeronasal region.
Worst case: The VNO is absent or if present is not chemosensitive nor necessarily functional in communication. The evidence for chemosensitivity is poorly documented and has not all been subject to effective peer review. The evidence for a communication function could be artifactual.
the nervus terminalis? cant find anything more recent than 2001. from a 1990 paper:
*The presence of an additional cranial nerve (the nervus terminalis or cranial nerve zero) is well documented in many non-human vertebrate species. However, its existence in the adult human has been disputed. The present study focused on the structure and incidence of this nerve in the adult human brain. The nerve was examined post-mortem in 10 adult brains using dissection microscopy, light microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and immunohistochemistry. In all specimens, the nervus terminalis was identified bilaterally as a microscopic plexus of unmyelinated peripheral nerve fascicles in the subarachnoid space covering the gyrus rectus of the orbital surface of the frontal lobes. The plexus appeared in the region of the cribriform plate of the ethmoid and coursed posteriorly to the vicinity of the olfactory trigone, medial olfactory gyrus, and lamina terminalis. We conclude that the terminal nerve is a common finding in the adult human brain, confirming early light microscopic reports.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted this. Unfortunately, you have to pay to read the whole article. You might be able to find a copy at the library though.
Hmm, that’s a review article. They usually just pool research studies from the last 10 years. Does anyone have any original research papers on VNO post 2001?
Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s report on Scent Signals and the VNO.
“Losing the VNOs has a much less drastic effect on experienced animals, says Wysocki, who has been studying the VNOs for about 20 years. When male mice have begun to associate sexual activity with other cues from females, including smells, they become less dependent on the VNOs. Sexually experienced males whose VNOs are removed mate almost as frequently as intact males.”
So technically pheromones help you out with virgins.
From what I understood from my latest research, the VNO recedes during fetal development, but still exists as more of a little dip where the pheromones settle in. There was also research conducted where some subjects were exposed to pheromones, and they did find they do trigger a response in different areas of the brain. Some pheromones trigger a stronger response than others. Estratetraenol and androstadienone trigger the strongest responses.
