Body odor sensory-chemical profiling - from newborns to adults

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Ilona Croy; Privatdozentin Dr. Helene Loos
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience ; Biological and Biomimetic Chemistry
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 424634632

Development is accompanied by a range of processes that impact physiology, behavior, and cognition. Recent evidence shows that humans are able to extract information about another person’s age or hormonal status from body odors. This suggests that chemosensory cues of body odors are subject to systematic developmental changes. In the proposed project, we, therefore, aim to a) evaluate the chemical composition of human body odors in four different age groups (infants, pre-pubertal, pubertal, and post-pubertal children), b) relate the identified chemical profile to the individual hormonal status, and c) to assess how the chemical profile of body odors moderates parental perception of their child’s body odor. The proposed project will thereby start to clarify the molecular basis of human chemosensory communication and start to relate this to the function of body odors in parent-infant-relationships. Within phase I of the project, sensory-analytical methods have been established, which should now be adopted to investigate a higher number of body odor samples to achieve the aims of the project. Notably, the established methods will allow in-depth characterization of the odorant composition of body odor samples on the one hand, and of the volatile patterns on the other hand. Target substances have been defined and will be quantified to investigate the relationship between the age and the hormonal status of the odor donors. With the planned experiments, we will be able to detect pubertal development-related changes in body odor composition and we will track the parental assessment of infantile body odors and the parental facial expression after smelling the odor of their child. This enables a consistent description of the olfactory parent-child communication from the sender to the receiver.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants