Can someone say "mind-control deodorant"?
Once we learn to activate olfactory receptors through the eyes with lasers, you'll be "tuned" before you enter large gathering spaces to be more socially compatible with the other occupants.
Researchers identify neurons that 'learn' to smell a threat
Jan 2023, phys.org
Researchers found that "inhibitory" neurons (nerve cells that act by silencing their synaptic partners) in an area of the brain responsible for interpreting social smells become highly active and change their function when males repeatedly meet and increase their territorial aggression. By disrupting the neurons associated with neuroplasticity—learning—in the accessory olfactory bulb, researchers revealed that territorial aggression decreased, linking changes to cellular function in the pheromone-sensing circuity of the brain to changes in behavioral responses to social threats."It abolished the ramping aggression that is typically exhibited," said Zuk. "It indicates that this early sensory inhibitory neuron population plays a critical role in regulating the behavioral response to social smells."
via University of Rochester Medical Center: Kelsey E. Zuk et al, Arc-Expressing Accessory Olfactory Bulb Interneurons Support Chemosensory Social Behavioral Plasticity, The Journal of Neuroscience (2023). DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0847-22.2022
Totally unrelated image credit: I'm endlessly fascinated with psychoanalyzing the artificial mind, in this case, one which cannot understand what fingers are: AI Art - A Person Who Conceals Their Face with their Hands AKA Damn Fingers - 2023
Scientists show that odors from other people's sweat can help treat social anxiety
Mar 2023, phys.org
Social anxiety was reduced when patients underwent mindfulness therapy while exposed to human 'chemo-signals', or what we commonly refer to as body odor, obtained from underarm sweat from volunteers.Combining these chemo-signals with mindfulness therapy seem to produce better results in treating social anxiety than can be achieved by mindfulness therapy alone".
via the Karolinska Institute and The European Congress of Psychiatry taking place 25-28 March 2023, in Paris. https://epa-congress.org/
*This work is part of the EU-funded Horizon2020 project POTION ("Promoting Social Interaction through Emotional Body Odors") 4.
Promoting social interaction through emotional body odours
The way chemistry influences human communication is one of the most intriguing and debated topics. More specifically, the nature of chemosignals and their sphere of influence on social interaction is a very important key to understanding human behaviour. POTION proposes a novel technological paradigm to delve deeper into understanding meaningful social interaction, combining new knowledge about the chemical composition of human social chemosignals together with a novel olfactory-based technology designed to drive social behaviour. A first challenging analysis on human chemosignals to delineate the chemical underpinnings of the emotions of happiness and fear will be carried out since they are the representative emotions that drive approach and avoidance behaviour, i.e. the fundamental building blocks of social interaction between individuals of the same species. Results of this analysis will be used to artificially synthetize the chemosignals of these two emotions, which will provide the basis of an innovative computer-controlled odour delivery system able to drive the approach-avoidance social strategy. This breakthrough device will be controlled in a closed loop by the social-emotional state of the subjects evaluated through a novel computational neural model. The POTION system will be applied and tested in both social and clinical scenarios. In the social scenarios, we venture to reveal how olfaction clues work in managing the feelings of trust, presence and inclusion, in both virtual, real, and social media contexts. In the clinical scenario, POTION will propose a new human chemosignal-based diagnosis and treatment for social anxiety, phobias and depression, which are known to all share impaired social functioning. POTION will provide further insight to the fundamental underpinnings of human behaviour with the goal to help establish healthy social relationships through trust, leading to an overall improvement in wellbeing.
