RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Encoding Human Sexual Chemosensory Cues in the Orbitofrontal and Fusiform Cortices
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 14416
OP 14421
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3148-08.2008
VO 28
IS 53
A1 Wen Zhou
A1 Denise Chen
YR 2008
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/28/53/14416.abstract
AB Chemosensory communication of affect and motivation is ubiquitous among animals. In humans, emotional expressions are naturally associated with faces and voices. Whether chemical signals play a role as well has hardly been addressed. Here, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that the right orbitofrontal cortex, right fusiform cortex, and right hypothalamus respond to airborne natural human sexual sweat, indicating that this particular chemosensory compound is encoded holistically in the brain. Our findings provide neural evidence that socioemotional meanings, including the sexual ones, are conveyed in the human sweat.