How can sweat reduce your anxiety?
Humans communicate emotions through a variety of paths, including speech, touch, facial expressions and motion – and smell. Yet little is known about how these signals are modulated between two people. The EU-funded POTION(opens in new window) project aimed to sniff out the answer, and has now been featured in the CORDIS series of explanatory videos titled ‘Make the connection with EU science’. POTION analysed the chemical composition of the chemosignals that bring about happiness and fear. The results were used to synthesise artificial chemosignals which could be delivered in a controlled manner. The project found that the molecules had a measurable impact on mood in those smelling them, suggesting they may find a use in combination with talking therapies. “Further work is needed to refine synthetic chemosignals and explore their effects in different social and clinical contexts,” says project coordinator Enzo Pasquale Scilingo, a researcher at the University of Pisa. ‘Make the connection with EU science’ is a series of explanatory videos focusing on the scientific content and exploitation aspects of EU research projects.