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The way to a woman's heart is through her nose?

Scent is said to be the strongest sense tied to memory, but to what degree does our sense of smell play into the laws of attraction? Thanks to modern neuroscience, evolutionary biologists have made leaps and bounds in the quest to explain some of the mysteries of love and attraction. It may be a clichd notion, but there's truth in the saying that opposites attract, at least when it comes to genetics.

Subtle chemical signals called pheromones, once detected by the olfactory system, trigger changes in behavior. Pheromones are known to influence mate choice, but does this play a role in human attraction? Androstadienone, a chemical signal present in male sweat, has been shown to cause hormonal changes in women. Also, the findings of a recent experiment point to a connection between immune function and mate selection. The major histocompatibility locus or MHC genes play an important role in the immune system. The combinations of two potential parent's different MHC genes ensure their children will benefit from genetic diversity. The recombination of parents' DNA may give their children a stronger immune system, and an advantage in fighting diseases. For these reasons, we have an inborn tendency to seek out partners with a different immune system than our own.

Swiss zoologist, Claus Wedekind tested this theory with what is being called the "sweaty T-shirt experiment". He selected men and women volunteers with a variety of MHC types. The men were given clean T-shirts to wear for two nights; the women were then brought in one at a time to smell boxes containing the shirts and asked to describe each odor in terms of intensity, pleasantness, and sexiness. The results overwhelmingly revealed that the majority of women preferred the scents of men whose immune response genes where different from their own. Wedekind's findings support the idea that we transmit and receive genetic information through our sense of smell. (So much for "the axe effect" theory) Bottom line: Follow your nose now, and spend less time in the pediatrician's waiting room later.

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