Last year, researchers identified an odorless compound emitted by people—babies in particular—that appears to foster aggressive behavior in women and blunt it in men. ScienceMagArchives
Scientists have argued for decades over whether humans have pheromones, chemical compounds that trigger aggression and mating in insects and other animals. Although the notion has great popular appeal—search Amazon for “pheromone” and you’ll get the idea—there’s scant evidence for this kind of signal in our species.
Humans emit HEX from their skin, saliva, and feces, and it’s among the most abundant molecules babies emit from their heads. When researchers isolated the odorless compound and piped it into mouse cages,, says Sobel, who studies the role of scent in human interactions. In one task, participants negotiated with an unseen partner to divvy up a sum of virtual money. The participants thought they were playing with another person, but they were actually playing against computers. If a player offered their “partner” anything less than 90% of the whole amount, the computer rejected their proposals with a bright red “NO!” preventing them from earning any money.
In a second experiment, the scientists compared how individuals behaved when exposed to HEX or to the control odor while monitoring their brain activity in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. HEX again increased aggression in women and dampened male aggression . The chemical also had different effects on brain activity, reducing neural communication between brain areas that control aggression in women, and boosting communication between those regions in men.
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