Promoting Social Interaction through Emotional Body Odours (POTION)

The way chemistry influences human communication is one of the most intriguing and debated topics. More specifically, the nature of chemosignals and their sphere of influence on social interaction is a very important key to understanding human behaviour. 

The POTION project aimed at understanding how olfaction (our sense of smell) affects human social interactions and emotional responses, and to use this knowledge to develop tools promoting healthy relationships and overall improvement in wellbeing. 

Potential impact

The POTION project aimed at opening new possibilities for enhancing treatments and fostering social connectedness. By exploring the possibility of enhancing accessible, self-administered interventions, the project also seeks to ease pressure on healthcare systems and expand treatment options for individuals with mental health challenges.

Why body odours?

A large body of literature exist on the role of the olfactory system in emotion processing as well as emotion regulation. 

Previous studies have shown that can humans not only “smell” emotions in other humans through perception of other people's body odours, but they also respond to emotional body odours accordingly. For example, exposure to fear body odour, often extracted from the armpit, have been shown to elicit movements in facial muscles used in facial expressions of fear, whereas those exposed to happiness body odour respond with movements in facial muscles used when expressing genuine happiness. 

If emotional body odours can influence the emotional state of the receiver, it raises a compelling question: could such chemosignals be harnessed to support mental health and emotional well-being?

The POTION system

Within the project, a first challenging analysis on human chemosignals was carried out to delineate the chemical underpinnings of the emotions of happiness and fear, since they are the representative emotions that drive approach and avoidance behaviour, i.e., the fundamental building blocks of social interaction between individuals of the same species. Results of this analysis were used to synthesize artificial chemosignals, which provided the basis of an innovative computer-controlled odour delivery system able to drive the approach-avoidance social strategy.

 The POTION system was applied and tested in both social and clinical scenarios. In the social scenarios, we ventured to reveal how olfaction clues work in managing the feelings of trust, presence and inclusion in virtual scenarios. In the clinical scenario, we proposed a new human chemosignal-based catalyst of treatment for social anxiety.

Clinical studies

In this framework, three consecutive randomized control studies were conducted to test whether body odours could enhance the effects of mindfulness meditation. Women aged 18 to 35 participated in two meditation sessions over consecutive days while being exposed to either human odours, artificial chemosignals, or clean air (control condition). The study designs were adapted based on earlier findings.

The first two studies investigated the potential of human chemosignals as treatment catalysts, while the third assessed whether artificial chemosignals developed by the Chemistry department at Pisa University could replicate these effects.

The initial studies on emotional body odours collected from healthy volunteers suggested their potential to enhance the effects of mindfulness meditation in reducing anxiety among individuals with social anxiety. However, no similar enhancement was observed for patients with depressive symptoms.

The final study tested a synthetic version of fear body odour (i.e. artificial chemosignals), which had shown the strongest effects in earlier studies. The aim of this final study was to assess whether the artificial chemosignals could enhance mindfulness meditation for social anxiety as effectively as the collected human body odours. Results showed that both artificial chemosignals and clean air led to symptom reduction, suggesting mindfulness meditation was the main driver of improvement. Although unexpected, this highlights the challenges of developing effective artificial compounds, and points to the need for further research on their therapeutic potential. 

Collaborating partners and KI’s role

The project was a collaboration between ten partners from eight European countries (Italy, Portugal, Sweden, France, Spain, United Kingdom, Ireland and Belgium), led by the Università di Pisa, Italy. 

KI's role in the POTION project involved the investigation of chemosignals in different groups of patients with social impairment, in which an alteration of the chemotactic signalling was hypothesised. Specifically, NASP collaborated with the project's partners to design study protocols, analyse data and interpret results of clinical studies on the role of fear and happiness human odour, and artificial chemosignals to enhance treatment among patients with depression and social anxiety disorder.

Read more

Read more about the POTION project on the website  https://potionh2020.com/

POTION on social media 

Twitter/X: @PotionProject

Publications

Cecchetto, C., Dal Bò, E., Eliasson, E. T., Vigna, E., Natali, L., Scilingo, E. P., ... & Gentili, C. (2024). Sniffing out a solution: How emotional body odors can improve mindfulness therapy for social anxiety. Journal of Affective Disorders, 369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2024.10.088