Article: Sweet smells banish pain

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http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992424

 

Sweet smells banish pain

 

13:14 20 June 02

 

The sweet scent of roses or almonds could take some of the pain out of

your stay in hospital. But only if you're a woman.

 

Serge Marchand and Pierre Arsenault at the University of Québec in

Abitibi-Témiscamingue asked 20 men and 20 women to keep their hand

immersed in painfully hot water for as long as they could while smelling

various odours. When given pleasant aromas such as almond extract to

sniff, the women experienced significantly less pain. Foul smells such

as vinegar seemed to slightly intensify their pain. However, the pain

felt by the men was not affected by the smells.

 

Physiology and Behaviour

 

Both sexes reported feeling happier in the presence of good smells,

while bad smells put them in a worse mood. But this effect on the

emotions can't be what changed the women's perception of pain. If it

was, the men should have responded in the same way.

 

Women are typically more sensitive to odours than men. But this also

can't explain why only women feel the pain-relief benefits, because the

women in the study didn't rate the intensity of smells differently from

the men.

 

Pleasant sensations of touch are known to activate an area of the

brain's frontal cortex used for taste and smell. So it's possible that

smells could be altering the sensory processing of touch, pain and

temperature by affecting this part of the brain in women.

More at: Physiology and Behavior (vol 76, p 251)

 

Betsy Mason