Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 25/02/2013 13:50:44

Title: Why do I Love the Smell of My Children?
Post by: thedoc on 25/02/2013 13:50:44

Is there a biological reason for this profound smell love pairing?
Asked by Dominic, via Facebook


                                        Visit the webpage for the podcast in which this question is answered. (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/neuroscience/show/20130220/)

[chapter podcast=1000194 track=13.02.20/Naked_Neuroscience_13.02.20_1000447.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd)  ...or Listen to the Answer[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/13.02.20/Naked_Neuroscience_13.02.20_1000447.mp3)

Title: Why do I Love the Smell of My Children?
Post by: thedoc on 25/02/2013 13:50:44

We answered this question on the show...

We posed this question to Dr Alex Kogan, Cambridge University. Here's his answer!
Alex -   Well, smells can be very much reinforced through learning patterns where you smell your children and you love your children, and we could pretty much pair those two stimuli together.  There might be something also in terms of chemicals going on with pheromones and other transmitters, but it’s probably an open question at this point, how much they're involved, how much of this is just a basic learning process.