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Sniffing the human body volatile hexadecanal blocks aggression in men but triggers aggression in women.

ABSTRACT: In terrestrial mammals, body volatiles can effectively trigger or block conspecific aggression. Here, we tested whether hexadecanal (HEX), a human body volatile implicated as a mammalian-wide social chemosignal, affects human aggression. Using validated behavioral paradigms, we observed a marked dissociation: Sniffing HEX blocked aggression in men but triggered aggression in women. Next, using functional brain imaging, we uncovered a pattern of brain activity mirroring behavior: In both men and women, HEX increased activity in the left angular gyrus, an area implicated in perception of social cues. HEX then modulated functional connectivity between the angular gyrus and a brain network implicated in social appraisal (temporal pole) and aggressive execution (amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex) in a sex-dependent manner consistent with behavior: increasing connectivity in men but decreasing connectivity in women. These findings implicate sex-specific social chemosignaling at the mechanistic heart of human aggressive behavior.

SUBMITTER: Mishor E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8604408 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Sniffing the human body volatile hexadecanal blocks aggression in men but triggers aggression in women.

Mishor Eva E Amir Daniel D Weiss Tali T Honigstein Danielle D Weissbrod Aharon A Livne Ethan E Gorodisky Lior L Karagach Shiri S Ravia Aharon A Snitz Kobi K Karawani Diyala D Zirler Rotem R Weissgross Reut R Soroka Timna T Endevelt-Shapira Yaara Y Agron Shani S Rozenkrantz Liron L Reshef Netta N Furman-Haran Edna E Breer Heinz H Strotmann Joerg J Uebi Tatsuya T Ozaki Mamiko M Sobel Noam N

Science advances 20211119 47

In terrestrial mammals, body volatiles can effectively trigger or block conspecific aggression. Here, we tested whether hexadecanal (HEX), a human body volatile implicated as a mammalian-wide social chemosignal, affects human aggression. Using validated behavioral paradigms, we observed a marked dissociation: Sniffing HEX blocked aggression in men but triggered aggression in women. Next, using functional brain imaging, we uncovered a pattern of brain activity mirroring behavior: In both men and ...[more]

PMID: 34797713

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Project description:Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is a life-threatening infectious disease caused by fungi from the genus Aspergillus, with an associated mortality as high as 90% in certain populations. IA-associated pulmonary lesions are characteristically depleted in oxygen relative to normal lung tissue, and it has been shown that the most common causal agent of IA, Aspergillus fumigatus, must respond to low-oxygen environments for pathogenesis and disease progression. Previous studies have demonstrated marked alterations to the Aspergillus fumigatus transcriptome in response to low-oxygen environments that induce a 'hypoxia response'. Consequently, we hypothesized that these transcriptomic changes would alter the volatile metabolome and generate a volatile hypoxia signature. In the present study, we analyzed the volatile molecules produced by A. fumigatus in both oxygen replete (normoxia) and depleted (hypoxia) environments via headspace solid-phase micro-extraction coupled to two-dimensional gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Using the machine learning algorithm random forest, we identified 19 volatile molecules that were discriminatory between the four growth conditions assessed in this study (i.e., early hypoxia (1 h), late hypoxia (8 h), early normoxia (1 h), and late normoxia (8 h)), as well as a set of 19 that were discriminatory between late hypoxia cultures and all other growth conditions in aggregate. Nine molecules were common to both comparisons, while the remaining 20 were specific to only one of two. We assigned putative identifications to 13 molecules, of which six were most highly abundant in late hypoxia cultures. Previously acquired transcriptomic data identified putative biochemical pathways induced in hypoxia conditions that plausibly account for the production of a subset of these molecules, including 2,3-butanedione and 3-hydroxy-2-butanone. These two molecules may represent a novel hypoxia fitness pathway in A. fumigatus, and could be useful in the detection of hypoxia-associated A. fumigatus lesions that develop in established IA infections.

Dataset Information

Sniffing the human body volatile hexadecanal blocks aggression in men but triggers aggression in women.

Publications

Sniffing the human body volatile hexadecanal blocks aggression in men but triggers aggression in women.

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