Psychology Today

The topic of pheromones needs some explanation, so I'm going to start by

giving you an overview of what pheromones are. The word "pheromone" was
coined in 1959 by Peter Karlson, a German biochemist, and Martin Lüscher, a
Swiss entomologist. It is derived from the Greek, pherein meaning "to carry"
and hormon meaning "to excite"— in other words "carrier of excitement."
Karlson and Luscher used this word to describe what they were witnessing in
their insect lab-that a chemical substance released by one insect-in their case
termites, seemed to affect the behavior of other termites around it. They
coined the word "pheromone" to describe the general phenomenon that a
chemical released by one animal could affect the physiology or behavior of
other animals of within its species. Simply put, pheromones are chemical
communication, and they are highly important for animals, like the social
insects who use chemical signals as their primary mode of communication.

Pheromones also convey important information for many non-insect species,

including primates. The reason for the bawdy connotation of "pheromone" in
our modern parlance is because for mammals, one of the most important
forms of messages they carry are communiqués about reproductive status
and availability. For example, androstenone, a pig pheromone, turns a
sow's attention to mating and nothing else, and induces her to assume the
sexually ready position. This automatic reaction has been exploited by pig
farmers wishing to spare the expense of keeping male studs. There is a
commercially available spray of androstenone called "Boar-Mate" that given to
a sow, eases the process of artificial insemination. A male rhesus monkey will
even ignore an amorous female in heat if he can not detect the pheromones
that signal her fertility. The fact that other mammals produce and react to
pheromones which play an indispensible role in their sex lives is why people
in the fragrance industry hold out hope for a human sex pheromone. If such a
chemical aphrodisiac could be discovered and bottled it would be the biggest
thing in history of cosmetics and fragrance.

Because many pheromones involve chemical secretions that are "smelled," or

have a smell, this has led to the erroneous conclusion that pheromones are
odors, which they are not. Pheromones are chemicals which may or may not
be smelled at all. It is also the case that pheromones are not normally picked
up and processed by the olfactory system, but rather by a separate structure
called the vomeronasal organ (VNO) which connects to the accessory
olfactory bulb, an independent structure from the main olfactory system. The
VNO is located above the roof of the mouth and evolved to detect large
molecules and molecules that are dissolved in liquid, which is why licking
various body parts-as dogs do when they great each other—is a key way for
pheromonal information to be received. We can only "smell" with our nose
small airborne molecules.

All animals that have been documented to use pheromonal communication

use their VNO for detecting them. One major problem for creating our billion
dollar pheromonal potion is that we do not have a functioning VNO. Human
embryos may have a VNO, but after birth this tissue disappears. There
continues to be controversy surrounding this issue, but overwhelming
evidence points to there being no functioning neural tissue in humans that
corresponds to the VNO of other animals. Moreover, although it may be
possible for the main olfactory bulb to process pheromones, the accessory
olfactory bulb to which VNO nerves normally project, has not been found in
humans.

Rachel Herz is the author of The Scent of Desire and on the faculty at Brown
University.