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Proc Biol Sci

Title:		The human brain is a detector of chemosensorily transmitted HLA-class I-similarity in same- and opposite-sex relations
Author(s):		Pause BM; Krauel K; Schrader C; Sojka B; Westphal E; Muller-Ruchholtz W; Ferstl R;
Address:		"Institute of Psychology, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, Olshausenstrasse 62, 24098 Kiel, Germany. bettina.pause@uni-duesseldorf.de"
Journal Title:		Proc Biol Sci
Year:		2006
Volume:		273
Issue:		1585
Page Number:		471 - 478
DOI:		10.1098/rspb.2005.3342
ISSN/ISBN:		0962-8452 (Print) 1471-2954 (Electronic) 0962-8452 (Linking)
Abstract:		"Studies on subjective body odour ratings suggest that humans exhibit preferences for human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-dissimilar persons. However, with regard to the extreme polymorphism of the HLA gene loci, the behavioural impact of the proposed HLA-related attracting signals seems to be minimal. Furthermore, the role of HLA-related chemosignals in same- and opposite-sex relations in humans has not been specified so far. Here, we investigate subjective preferences and brain evoked responses to body odours in males and females as a function of HLA similarity between odour donor and smeller. We show that pre-attentive processing of body odours of HLA-similar donors is faster and that late evaluative processing of these chemosignals activates more neuronal resources than the processing of body odours of HLA-dissimilar donors. In same-sex smelling conditions, HLA-associated brain responses show a different local distribution in male (frontal) and female subjects (parietal). The electrophysiological results are supported by significant correlations between the odour ratings and the amplitudes of the brain potentials. We conclude that odours of HLA-similar persons function as important social warning signals in inter- and intrasexual human relations. Such HLA-related chemosignals may contribute to female and male mate choice as well as to male competitive behaviour"
Keywords:		"Adult Brain/*physiology Electroencephalography Female HLA Antigens/*physiology Humans Male *Odorants Pheromones, Human/*physiology;"
Notes:		"MedlinePause, Bettina M Krauel, Kerstin Schrader, Claudia Sojka, Bernfried Westphal, Eckhard Muller-Ruchholtz, Wolfgang Ferstl, Roman eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2006/04/18 Proc Biol Sci. 2006 Feb 22; 273(1585):471-8. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2005.3342"