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SCOPE meets Dr Bernard Mahon
Does nature know best on perfume? We love to put on a splash of perfume or aftershave when getting ready for a big night out. But could masking our natural odours with man-made smells spell disaster in the dating game? Apparently so, and it's all down to pheromones - smells that our bodies naturally produce. We can't actually smell them, but they play a big part in the mechanics of attraction. Dr Bernard Mahon is dean of science at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He's a biology lecturer and expert on the immune system and he explains to SCOPE what a pheromone is. Chemical signals "A pheromone is very simply a chemical signal that's released by one organism to send a message to another," he says. "It can be 'don't hunt in this land because I'm here'," he says. Dr Mahon says pheromones work more strongly with animals like cats, dogs and rodents, but they work with humans too, and it's to do with our immune system. "What attracts us to one person and another seems to be linked in to our particular type of immunity," he says. "You might be attracted more to someone who is more distantly related to you than someone who is more closely related to you. That's probably due to evolution trying to help us to keep our immune system as diverse as possible." Attraction experiment Dr Mahon sets up a small experiment to see if Danann can find his ideal partner using smell. Danann is given four different t-shirts which have pheromones from their wearers on them, and he has to rate them in terms of attraction. Danann's least favourite turns out to have been worn for the last few days by a cow. His next choice of t-shirt had been worn by his sister. His second choice in the attractive ratings was Danann himself and his first choice for attractive smells was Ciara, a local student who kindly took part in the experiment. The results are exactly what scientists would have predicted. "The cattle would have been too distantly related to be linking in to our pheromones," says Dr Mahon. "Danann and his sister would be related but share a lot of immune proteins and these wouldn't really be that attractive. Ciara's not related, wouldn't be sharing the immune molecules, and so it would be her pheromones that Danann would find most attractive. Other chemicals Other chemicals in our bodies go to work when we feel love and attraction. These can cause us to have "butterflies" in our stomachs, lose our appetites and sleep less. In the attraction stage, three different chemicals go to work. These are: . Dopamine, a reward chemical . Adrenalin, which makes us sweat and makes the heart race . Serotonin, which is linked to happiness. When you are truly feeling love, a hormone called oxytocin is also released, which is thought to encourage bonding between people. Falling in love also makes us secrete more phenylethylamine, which is also found in chocolate. Finally, breaking up also causes a chemical reaction - the withdrawals from the chemicals that keep us in love can be unpleasant and add to the misery. Learn more: Read why humans and animals fall in love Learn more about pheromones Find out all about the chemistry of chocolate |
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