The impact of body odor on bonding and incest avoidance over the course of life: a developmental and neuropsychological approach

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Ilona Croy
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Developmental Neurobiology ; Developmental and Educational Psychology
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316678213

The aim of the research project is to create a comprehensive picture of the impact of body odors to bonding and incest prevention over the course of life. It is known that human parent-child bonding and kin recognition are modulated by olfactory stimuli and we hypothesize that this modulation varies as a function of the age of the child. In infants this modulation is assumed foster bonding, in puberty it prevents the child from sexual attraction of their parents. Childrens body odors consist of several compounds that can be divided into highly variable, stable and developmental ones. Stable, genetic compounds are related to human leukocyte antigens (HLA) and developmental ones are related to hormonal changes of the children. We assume that HLA-related compounds initiate kin recognition and enhance reward processing of own infants body odor. However, olfactory genetic similarity may interact with of developmental compounds related to sexual hormones and lead to an unpleasant body odor perception of own pubescent children. The project consists of four studies, which clarify 1) the impact of genetic and hormonal compounds on body odor perception 2) parental reward processing in response to the body odor of infants vs pubescent children and ) the impact of the sense of smell on mother-child bonding. The studies are carried out in healthy participants; a study in patients complements the project. Methods include questionnaires, psychophysical examination and functional magnetic resonance tomography on the parents side. Furthermore hormonal state of the children is assessed and parents and children undergo HLA sequencing. Body odor analysis is planned in order objectify developmental related changes of body odors. We expect that this project sheds new light on the developmental dynamics of family interactions. The results will extend the current knowledge on bonding by including the olfactory channel, which forms an emotional background and serves as a modulator for signals from different modalities. The combination of psychosensory studies with bonding is a new interdisciplinary approach. Inclusion of genetic variables (HLA) on body odor assessment is a novel method and the interaction with hormonal changes makes the project challenging and unique. In result, the project can add new strategies for the prevention of bonding-disorders, caused by preterm birth or postnatal depression for instance.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Anette Giani; Dr. Alexander Schmidt