HUMAN CHEMOSIGNALS!!

Human Tears Contain a Chemosignal

Shani Gelstein1,*, Yaara Yeshurun1,*, Liron Rozenkrantz1, Sagit Shushan1,2, Idan Frumin1, Yehudah Roth2 and Noam Sobel1,†

+ Author Affiliations
1Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
2Department of OtoRhinoLaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Edith Wolfson Medical Center, Holon 58100, Israel.

Abstract
Emotional tearing is a poorly understood behavior that is considered uniquely human. In mice, tears serve as a chemosignal. We therefore hypothesized that human tears may similarly serve a chemosignaling function. We found that merely sniffing negative-emotion–related odorless tears obtained from women donors induced reductions in sexual appeal attributed by men to pictures of women’s faces. Moreover, after sniffing such tears, men experienced reduced self-rated sexual arousal, reduced physiological measures of arousal, and reduced levels of testosterone. Finally, functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that sniffing women’s tears selectively reduced activity in brain substrates of sexual arousal in men.



Science 14 January 2011: Vol. 331 no. 6014 pp. 226-230