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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 womensome evidence of real, measurable sexual chemistry.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What scientists need is "a behavioral assay that is really specific, that leaves no doubt," explains Alan Singer of the

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.

When at last they obtained a chemically pure pheromone, they named it "bombykol" for the silkworm moth, "Bombyx mori" from which it was extracted. It signaled, "come to me!" from great distances. "It has been soberly calculated that if a single female moth were to release all the bombykol in her sac in a single spray, all at once, she could theoretically attract a trillion males in the instant," wrote Lewis Thomas in The Lives of a Cell.

The first pheromone ever identified (in 1956) was a powerful sex attractant for silkworm moths. A team of German researchers worked 20 years to isolate it. After removing certain glands at the tip of the abdomen of 500,000 female moths, they extracted a curious compound. The minutest amount of it made male moths beat their wings madly in a "flutter dance." This clear sign that the males had sensed the attractant enabled the scientists to purify the pheromone. Step by step, they removed extraneous matter and sharply reduced the amount of attractant needed to provoke the flutter dance.

Just what do the VNOs of humansrespond to? Probably pheromones, a kind of chemical signal originally studied in insects.

Recently, researchers have come to a different conclusion. Both VNOs and vomeronasal pitstiny openings to the VNO in the nasal septumhave been found in nearly all patients examined by Bruce Jafek, an otolaryngologist at the University of Colorado at Denver and David Moran.

Do human beings have VNOs? In the early 1800s, L. Jacobson, a Danish physician, detected likely structures in a patient's nose, but he assumed they were non-sensory organs. Others thought that although VNOs exist in human embryos, they disappear during development or remain "vestigial"imperfectly developed.

A virgin male hamster or mouse whose vomeronasal organs are removed generally will not mate with a receptive female, they found, even if the male's main olfactory nerves are undamaged. Apparently, the VNOs are needed to start certain chains of behavior that are already programmed in the brain. Although only preliminary tests have been conducted, it is felt that this holds true for humans as well. This is why the smells produced by a horny partner is so arousing.

This signaling system is particularly important to animals that are inexperienced sexually. Experiments have shown that the VNOs play a key role in triggering sexual behavior in naive targets.

The VNOs are located just behind the nostrils, in the nose's dividing wall (they take their name from the vomer bone, where the nasal septum meets the hard palate). In rodents, at least, signals travel from the VNO to the accessory olfactory bulb (rather than to the main olfactory bulb) and then, to parts of the brain that control reproduction and maternal behavior. It's an alternate route to the brain. If the accessory olfactory system functions in humans as it does in rodents, bypassing the cerebral cortex , there is likely to be no conscious awareness of it at all.

In the past five years, scientists have become extremely interested in these signals, as well as in the "accessory olfactory system" that responds to them in many animals. This system starts with nerve cells in a pair of tiny, cigar-shaped sacs called the vomeronasal organs (VNOs), where the signals are first picked up. The VNO appears to be a much more primitive structure that uses a different set of molecular machinery than the main olfactory system .

The effects of such messages would be far less obvious in humans. When we receive chemical signals from people in our vicinity, these signals must compete with many other factors that influence our behavior. Yet our physiology may be just as responsive to chemical messages as that of other mammals. It is known that certain chemical messages from other mice lead to the onset of puberty in young males, while a different set of signals brings young female mice into estrus. Similarly, there are some suggestions that women may alter their hormonal cycles when exposed to chemical signals from other people.

A whiff of airborne chemicals from a female mouse, for instance, may spur a male mouse to mate immediately. Certain chemical messages from other males may make him aggressive. Other messages may produce changes in his physiologyas well as in that of the responding female.

In addition to our sense of smell, we have the ability to sense certain chemical signals emitted by people around uswithout being aware of it. Scientists are only just beginning to uncover our alternate way of "smelling."

How Pheromones Work

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