我要吃瓜

Many species, including humans, use odors to communicate emotions (e.g. fear), but the mechanisms are barely understood. While we think odors derive from skin microflora, no study has yet described the microflora associated with a social signal, and a signal of fear would require a speed of response unprecedented in microbiome research.

Here, we combine expertise in the psychology of olfactory communication, dynamic change in the skin microbiome, and real-time chemical analysis of the volatilome to elucidate the chain of responses that enables rapid social communication of acute emotion in humans (and, perhaps, other species).

We will induce emotional responses to salient stimuli (e.g. scary scenes) while monitoring simultaneous change in microbial activity and production of volatile compounds from the skin; subsequent analysis of volatiles from incubated bacterial cultures will enable us to distinguish compounds of microbial origin. Having thus identified candidate volatile compounds, we will test their efficacy as fear signals, predicting that they will induce appropriate responses in na?ve participants.