Fear also smells

A recent study demonstrates that the sweat we secrete while fear generates signals that others can unconsciously acquire.

The veteran skydiver still has a sense of fear.Photo: Incredible.

To find out if people can smell the fear, experts from Stony Brook University (New York, USA) collect the sweat of an amateur skydiver. They attached sponges to the biceps and armpits of 40 new parachutes for the first time. When the volunteers landed, the team removed the sponges to collect sweat. They also conducted interviews to classify those who felt fearful when hovering in the air.

Scientists require a second group of volunteers (including men and women) to smell sweat patterns. While the group of volunteers smelled sweat, the team conducted a scan of their brains. When the pattern of sweat of fearful people is given, the region of the brain that handles the fear of the volunteers is suddenly brighter than normal. This shows that the brain has the ability to identify chemicals that cause fear in sweat.

Some previous experiments have also demonstrated that the smell of sweat that people excrete while watching horror movies is different from the smell of sweat pouring out while watching comedies. However, some scientists are skeptical of the test results. Simon Wessely, a psychologist from King's College London (UK), said that chemicals cannot cause fear.

Many other experts disagree with the view of people, like animals, under the impact of chemicals that we can feel with smell. Meanwhile, some US military scientists are trying to create some chemicals capable of causing a sense of fear to use on the battlefield.

However, they do not think that the sense of fear is encoded in our sweat. Some tests show that body odor plays an important role in finding partners in the animal world. Scientists believe that people always choose their partners among those who smell different from us. It is an instinct that has been created so that we do not misconduct with those who are related by blood.