Human Pheromone Reviews
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How Pheromones Work - Part 3
In dealing with mammals, however, scientists faced an entirely different problem. Compared to insects, whose behavior is stereotyped and highly predictable, mammals are independent, ornery, complex creatures. Their behavior varies greatly, and its meaning is not always clear.
What scientists need is "a behavioral assay that is really specific, that leaves no doubt," explains Alan Singer of the Monell Chemical Senses Center . A few years ago, Singer and Foteos Macrides of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Massachusetts did find an assay that worked with mammals
Eventually Singer isolated the protein that triggered this clear-cut response. "Aphrodisin," as the researchers called it, appears to be a carrier protein for a smaller molecule that is tightly bound to it and may be the real pheromone. The substance seems to work through the VNO, since male hamsters do not respond to it when their VNOs have been removed.
Humans are "the hardest of all" mammals to work with, Singer says. Yet, Martha McClintock, noted that college women who lived in the same dormitory and spent a lot of time together gradually developed closer menstrual cycles. Though the women's cycles were randomly scattered when they arrived, after a while their timing became more synchronized.
McClintock has now completed a new study of women's menstrual cycles, she wanted to know whether there are two opposing pheromones that can either delay or advance women's cycles. In this study, she focused on the exact time of ovulation rather than on synchrony. The results were outstanding. There are 2 distinct types of pheromones in which females respond to. One invokes sexual behaviour, the other discourages it.
The most direct scientific route to understanding pheromones and the VNO may, once again, be through genetics. It is estimated that there must be 50 to 100 distinct genes of this kind in VNO neurons. Now we have to match up pheromones and receptors, to see which "scent" actual has what efect on every person.
Once the genes for such receptors are definitively identified, scientists could then determine, once and for all, the compelling mystery of attraction between men and women—some evidence of real, measurable sexual chemistry.