Just ran across an article by Garry Nelson of Liquid Alchemy Labs :

http://pheromoneattraction.info/womens-h...-pheromone

Got me thinking - if a woman is responding pheromonally to a man's perceived health/fitness (using testosterone levels as a "simple" signal level) and this perception is obviously able to be manipulated for positive response, then wouldn't it make sense that the "natural" mechanism at work would also "naturally" have negative response capability?

Seems like a sexual selection mechanism is at work in just about every aspect of our physiology and psychology, and by "proving" that we can induce "false positives" using pheromones seems to mean that there may be uses for pheromones that could mediate biological signals that degrade with age in some individuals.

This is what I posted in reply to Garry's blog posting as food for thought :


Makes me wonder if part of the upsurge in the failure of marriages may be related to husbands living longer and having testosterone levels that taper off - could this cause a response in their wives at a subconscious and biological level that the men are no longer fit partners? Perhaps the lowered testosterone in the male is communicated to the female pheromonally and she is reacting negatively, the opposite of a positive response induced when purposefully wearing pheromones?


Soo I would love to hear if there are any real assays for pheromonal production (like the TSA bomb-sniffers, etc.) that could let a person know that they are signalling declining fitness/health as a mate. A baseline would have to be known from the point in time when their partner did approve of them in order to know from later assays exactly how their natural signature has altered and what it may communicate.

I'm thinking along the lines of :

Is your marriage on the rocks?
Suffering from Lowered Testosterone?
Use Brand X body wash/cologne/shampoo/conditioner/aftershave/mouthwash/yadda yadda!
It will mask your deteriorating masculinity and reduce the chance that your still-hot wife will bang the gardener when you are not home!

Ugh I can go down ugly tangents at times in my mind..

I never went into marketing because I try to use my powers only for good! I do believe that personal care products with pheromones included are already going to market just not with this blatantly exploitative type of fear-based marketing.

More seriously though, the subtle communications of an individual's natural pheromonal production might be analyzed to predict a response profile from a "normal" partner, and maybe to diagnose an underlying medical condition or changing trend in their biology.

I don't know much about what I'm talking about, but the female's response to perceived testosterone level made some interesting connections in my mind I wanted to write out before they faded.

Enjoy!

Rob, remember that as the males testosterone levels decrease estrogen levels in women also decrease, creating somewhat of a balanced effect.

The two are entertwined, and decrease in both sexes as we age.

Do not for one second think that due to your age any sort of decreased testosterone levels have contributed or are the cause of your failed marriage.

Thanks mark, understood - I wasn't so much thinking of myself (consciously??) as I was about the signalling affects behind an individual's biology.

I've been thinking for awhile about pheromonal assays and am becoming more aware of the feedback loops between individuals.

I'm definitely not (consciously?) looking for a scapegoat in my own life, but my current situation probably helped making the connection between the positive influence and the probable existence of a negative influence.

This post raises lots of questions that I don't think anyone has the answers for yet. You have some good ideas though.

Right now I don't think there has been enough clarification on how or why pheromones work as pheromones. Yes, they tend to be hormone metabolites, but some are excreted in sweat or urine while others are converted on the skin by bacteria. I tend to think about pheromones as primarily a feedback mechanism (like a neuron picking up and reinforcing it's own signals via autoreceptors) with a secondary effect of exerting influence on others.

In some cases that influence seems communicative -- as in pregnenolone conveying a kind of "metabolic cash to burn" or androsterone conveying victory in battle via metabolized adrenaline. In other cases, the influence seems more manipulative. The way Est seems to make people protective, for example, reminds me of the way toxoplasmosis makes mice lose their fear of cats.

You could easily argue that pheromones are exogenous neurotransmitters. Sometimes I think of them as drugs not for individuals but for the social organisms to which those individuals belong.

However you may think about pheromones, as a psychologist I am inclined to consider their influence on the psyche bidirectional, like everything else. The mind affects the functioning of the body just as the body controls the functioning of the mind.

The biologist in me caught onto the idea of an individual somehow perceiving a biological change in another individual, rather than a "first impression" perception - a change over time, and how that perception could be formed by interpretation of pheromonal signals.

Specifically relating to their subconscious/instinctual perception of the other individual's fitness/attractiveness/suitability as a mate, and how it could be either a positive or negative perception, since so much of what I've read lately has been focused on positive perceptions almost solely.

Took time for the thought to gel, my biologist brain is a little rusty...

(06-02-2011 12:39 AM)dbot Wrote:  However you may think about pheromones, as a psychologist I am inclined to consider their influence on the psyche bidirectional, like everything else. The mind affects the functioning of the body just as the body controls the functioning of the mind.

You are more right on that than you could ever know!

The girl I dated from Brazil a couple of years ago had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and saw a psychologist 3 times a week. I told her that if she'd let me I could and would cure her, and actually started to make a LOT of progress, but we didn't date long enough for it to stick I don't think.

And no, I'm not a psychoanalysist, just someone that's been there done that and knows a little about how the brain works, and learned a bit about altering thought processes and behavior patterns.

I'm not really good w/ scientific lingo, but I can contribute to this discussion w/ some life experience. I strongly believe that there must be some pheromonal signature specific to ill health, after my experience working as a CNA. I remember that people with cancer had this very distinctive smell, we used to hide butter tubs full of apple cider vinegar to combat the strong smell our patients would get when their cancer had progressed out of control. Then scientists finally figured out that you could use dogs to sniff out cancer, I was like really?: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/01...16961.html

I've heard about that, Beccah, and it's an interesting point. I wonder if that smell is anything like the aroma of MEO?

The smell of old people gives me the willies too. I have to go and see a patient at a nursing home periodically and the whole place makes me want to run away.

(06-02-2011 1:07 AM)mark-in-dallas Wrote:  The girl I dated from Brazil a couple of years ago had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and saw a psychologist 3 times a week. I told her that if she'd let me I could and would cure her, and actually started to make a LOT of progress, but we didn't date long enough for it to stick I don't think.

And no, I'm not a psychoanalysist, just someone that's been there done that and knows a little about how the brain works, and learned a bit about altering thought processes and behavior patterns.

What'd you do to her? Sex therapy??

I know for a fact that you can cure bipolar without medication; ironically, the meds make it a lot harder to cure.