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Rapid stress system drives chemical transfer of fear from sender to receiver

dc.contributor.authorGroot, Jasper H. B. de
dc.contributor.authorSmeets, Monique A. M.
dc.contributor.authorSemin, Gün R.
dc.date.accessioned2015-04-15T17:55:31Z
dc.date.available2015-04-15T17:55:31Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.description.abstractHumans can register another person’s fear not only with their eyes and ears, but also with their nose. Previous research has demonstrated that exposure to body odors from fearful individuals elicited implicit fear in others. The odor of fearful individuals appears to have a distinctive signature that can be produced relatively rapidly, driven by a physiological mechanism that has remained unexplored in earlier research. The apocrine sweat glands in the armpit that are responsible for chemosignal production contain receptors for adrenalin. We therefore expected that the release of adrenalin through activation of the rapid stress response system (i.e., the sympathetic-adrenal medullary system) is what drives the release of fear sweat, as opposed to activation of the slower stress response system (i.e., hypothalamus- pituitary-adrenal axis). To test this assumption, sweat was sampled while eight participants prepared for a speech. Participants had higher heart rates and produced more armpit sweat in the fast stress condition, compared to baseline and the slow stress condition. Importantly, exposure to sweat from participants in the fast stress condition induced in receivers (N = 31) a simulacrum of the state of the sender, evidenced by the emergence of a fearful facial expression (facial electromyography) and vigilant behavior (i.e., faster classification of emotional facial expressions).por
dc.description.sponsorshipNetherlands Organization for Scientific Research awardpor
dc.identifier.citationPlos One, 10(2), e0118211por
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal.pone.0118211
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10400.12/3554
dc.language.isoengpor
dc.peerreviewedyespor
dc.publisherPublic Library Sciencepor
dc.relation406-11-078/MaGWpor
dc.titleRapid stress system drives chemical transfer of fear from sender to receiverpor
dc.typejournal article
dspace.entity.typePublication
oaire.citation.conferencePlaceSan Franciscopor
oaire.citation.endPage22por
oaire.citation.startPage1por
oaire.citation.titlePlos Onepor
oaire.citation.volume10por
rcaap.rightsopenAccesspor
rcaap.typearticlepor

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