Recent quotes:

Scent of a friend: Similarities in body odor may contribute to social bonding: An electronic nose relying on body odor chemistry may predict whether we are likely to 'click' with a stranger -- ScienceDaily

ilar to their own. To test her hypothesis, Ravreby recruited pairs of click friends: same-sex nonromantic friends whose friendships had originally formed very rapidly. She hypothesized that because such friendships emerge prior to an in-depth acquaintance, they may be particularly influenced by physiological traits such as body odor. She then collected body odor samples from these click friends and conducted two sets of experiments to compare the samples with those collected from random pairs of individuals. In one set of experiments, she performed the comparison using the eNose, which assessed the chemical signatures of the odors. In the other, she asked volunteers to smell the two groups of body odor samples in order to assess similarities measured by human perception. In both types of experiments, click friends were found to smell significantly more like each other than did the individuals in the random pairs.

Orange essential oil may help alleviate post-traumatic stress disorder: Researchers find evidence that essential oil reduces fear, diminishes immune system markers of stress in mice -- ScienceDaily

Twelve mice received the tone by itself, 12 mice received water and fear conditioning, and 12 mice received an orange essential oil and fear conditioning. Mice exposed to orange essential oil by passive inhalation showed a significant reduction in freezing behavior and stopped freezing earlier than the water-exposed, fear-conditioned mice. They also showed significant differences in the types of immune cells present after fear conditioning. The immune system contributes to the inflammation associated with chronic stress and fear, so immune cells are a marker of the biochemical pathways involved in PTSD.

'Smell you later!' Abililty to smell well linked to social life in older women -- ScienceDaily

The researchers compared each NSHAP participant's odor identification score, an established measure of olfactory function, with an aggregated "overall social life" score, which included measures such as participants' number of friends and close relatives, and how often they socialized. The data were adjusted to control for possible confounding variables, including education level, tobacco use, and physical and mental health status. The findings revealed a clear link between an older woman's olfactory ability and her overall social life score: women with good olfactory ability tended to have more active social lives while those with diminished olfactory function were associated with a poorer social life score.

Scientists identify brain circuit that drives pleasure-inducing behavior: Surprisingly, the neurons are located in a brain region thought to be linked with fear -- ScienceDaily

The researchers found that five of these populations stimulate reward-related behavior: When the mice were exposed to light, the mice repeatedly sought more light exposure because these neurons were driving a reward circuit. These same populations all receive input from the positive emotion cells in the BLA.