We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!
Export Podcast Subscriptions
cover of episode Dr. Noam Sobel: How Smells Influence Our Hormones, Health & Behavior

Dr. Noam Sobel: How Smells Influence Our Hormones, Health & Behavior

2023/5/1
logo of podcast Huberman Lab

Huberman Lab

AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
A
Andrew Huberman
是一位专注于神经科学、学习和健康的斯坦福大学教授和播客主持人。
N
Noam Sobel
Topics
Andrew Huberman: 本期节目将探讨嗅觉的生物学机制及其对人类行为、认知、社会联系和激素的影响,包括人类追踪气味的能力、每次见面时不自觉地感知和处理对方散发出的化学信息、以及他人眼泪对荷尔蒙水平的影响等。 Noam Sobel: 除了鼻腔嗅觉,口腔嗅觉也对嗅觉体验有重要贡献。气味分子进入鼻腔,与嗅上皮中的嗅觉受体结合,产生神经信号,经嗅神经传递到嗅球,再投射到大脑的不同区域,包括梨状皮层、内嗅皮层和杏仁核等。嗅觉系统遵循“用进废退”原则,保持嗅觉神经元的活跃性有助于维持其连接。人类对某些气味的检测阈值极低,并且可以通过训练提高追踪气味的效率。鼻循环现象与自主神经系统的平衡有关,可用于疾病诊断。吸气过程可能与大脑信息处理的时机和模式有关。嗅觉丧失可能是神经退行性疾病的早期信号,定期进行嗅觉测试可以作为早期筛查手段。 Andrew Huberman: 人类嗅觉能力惊人,可以追踪气味,并且可以通过训练得到提高。每次见面,我们都会不自觉地感知并处理对方散发出的化学信息,从而影响情绪和判断。他人的眼泪会强烈地影响我们的荷尔蒙水平。鼻孔交替呼吸反映了自主神经系统的动态变化,与警觉性和睡眠程度有关。我们持续感知自身的气味,并通过有意识或无意识地闻自己来改变认知和行为。嗅觉通路比听觉通路更直接地到达海马体(记忆编码中心)。第一次接触的气味会形成特别持久的记忆。 Noam Sobel: 嗅觉不仅仅依赖于嗅觉系统,三叉神经也参与其中。纯嗅觉物质只刺激嗅神经,不刺激三叉神经。如果嗅神经完全断裂,嗅觉丧失将是永久性的;部分断裂则有可能恢复。如果一年半内嗅觉未恢复,则可能无法恢复。同一种类型的嗅觉受体在嗅球中汇聚到同一个或两个镜像位置(肾小球)。每个嗅觉受体对特定的一组气味分子(气味素)敏感,嗅球上的肾小球映射了受体的身份。嗅球中的信息会投射到大脑的多个区域,包括梨状皮层、内嗅皮层和杏仁核等。气味记忆可能比其他感官记忆更持久和稳固。

Deep Dive

Chapters
Dr. Sobel discusses the incredible power of the human sense of smell and how it compares to other mammals. He highlights the remarkable detection threshold of humans, citing examples like mercaptans in cooking gas and estratetraenol, showcasing our ability to detect minute concentrations of odorants. The conversation then delves into the structure of the olfactory system, starting from the olfactory epithelium with millions of receptors to the olfactory bulb in the brain, where signals are processed and relayed to other brain regions.

Shownotes Transcript

In this episode, my guest is Noam Sobel, PhD, professor of neurobiology in the department of brain sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Dr. Sobel explains his lab’s research on the biological mechanisms of smell (“olfaction”) and how sensing odorants and chemicals in our environment impacts human behavior, cognition, social connections, and hormones. He explains how smell is a crucial component of “social sensing” and how we use olfaction when meeting new people to determine things about their physiology and psychology, and he explains how this impacts friendships and romantic partners. He explains how smell influences emotions, hormone levels, memories and the relationship between breathing and autonomic homeostasis. He describes how smell-based screening tests can aid disease diagnosis and explains his lab’s work on digitization of smell — which may soon allow online communication to include “sending of odors” via the internet. Dr. Sobel’s work illustrates how sensitive human olfaction is and how it drives much of our biology and behavior.

For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com).

Thank you to our sponsors

AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman)

LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman)

Waking Up: https://www.wakingup.com/huberman)

Momentous: https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman)

Timestamps

(00:00:00) Dr. Noam Sobel

(00:04:03) Sponsors: LMNT & Waking Up

(00:06:46) Olfaction Circuits (Smell)

(00:14:49) Loss & Regeneration of Smell, Illness

(00:21:39) Brain Processing of Smell

(00:24:40) Smell & Memories

(00:25:11) Sponsor: AG1

(00:29:07) Humans & Odor Tracking

(00:39:25) The Alternating Nasal Cycle & Autonomic Nervous System

(00:48:18) Cognitive Processing & Breathing

(00:54:47) Neurodegenerative Diseases & Olfaction

(01:00:12) Congenital Anosmia

(01:06:19) Handshaking, Sharing Chemicals & Social Sensing

(01:15:07) Smelling Ourselves & Smelling Others

(01:22:02) Odors & Romantic Attraction

(01:24:58) Vomeronasal Organ, “Bruce Effect” & Miscarriage

(01:40:20) Social Chemo-Signals, Fear

(01:50:26) Chemo-Signaling, Aggression & Offspring

(02:03:57) Menstrual Cycle Synchronization

(02:12:11) Sweat, Tears, Emotions & Testosterone

(02:27:46) Science Politics

(02:37:54) Food Odors & Nutritional Value

(02:45:34) Human Perception & Odorant Similarity

(02:52:12) Digitizing Smell, COVID-19 & Smell

(03:05:50) Medical Diagnostic Future & Olfaction Digitization

(03:10:55) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Momentous, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter

Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac)

Disclaimer)