ArticleCommunications chemistry2025
Enhanced sensitivity to odors due to chemosignals associated with anxiety.
Article in Communications chemistry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Unintended VOC emissions from cotton and viscose pads complicate olfactory experiments.Scientific reports · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Chemocommunication is important in human nonverbal communication. Behavioral effects of anxiety chemosignals on recipients are established but it is unknown whether odor sensitivity can be modulated by such stimuli. We tested recipients' sensitivity to phenylethyl alcohol (PEA) and n-butanol after exposure to anxiety chemosignals, neutral chemosignals and blank condition. As fourth condition, a horror movie was shown, to compare the effects of visual stimuli and chemosignals on odor sensitivity. Odor sensitivity for PEA was significantly increased by anxiety chemosignals compared to blank condition. No change in odor sensitivity was evident for n-butanol. We also investigated the composition of the applied chemosensory stimuli using untargeted one-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and -olfactometry (GC-O). Considering GC-MS data, several compounds were found with significantly higher normalized peak areas in anxiety sweat samples compared to the neutral samples. GC-O analysis indicated that the carboxylic acids dodecanoic acid and 3-hydroxy-3-methylhexanoic acid were potential main contributors to the odor of anxiety sweat samples, whereby tetradecanoic acid and patchouli alcohol were those of the odor of neutral sweat samples. This study provides evidence that anxiety chemosignals can improve odor sensitivity and constitutes a further step toward elucidating the composition of sweat samples used in chemical communication research.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.