Chemosensory anxiety signals as modulators of trust, and aggression

焦虑的化学感觉信号增加了对危险的社会信号的感知敏锐度，并引发了与退缩相关的运动系统。由于焦虑的化学感觉信号在调节移情感觉的大脑区域内进行处理，因此提出这些化学信号将焦虑的感觉从发送者传达给感知者。此外，患有社交焦虑的人似乎比非焦虑个体更强烈地处理和反应焦虑的化学感觉信号。在这里，它的目的是调查是否也在社会焦虑和非社会焦虑参与者的公开社会行为的影响，在这些化学信号的背景下。当气味供体参与特里尔社会压力测试（TSST，组测试）时，以及当他们进行简单的测力计训练（对照条件）时，将对汗液进行采样。该项目的实验部分将与感知器中信号处理的行为结果有关。由于焦虑的化学信号可能用于告知同种潜在的危险，因此预计在焦虑的化学信号的背景下将诱发性别特异性压力相关的行为反应。虽然男性可能会对化学感觉焦虑信号做出反应，但在女性中，倾向和交友行为可能会受到影响。因此，我们打算建立两种不同的行为应激反应的测量方法：一种与攻击和防御有关，另一种与社会约束有关，如信任。预计男性对这些化学信号的反应会增加，表现出明显的侵略性。然而，在女性中，化学感受压力信号的感知应该激活增加的准备表现出约束力的行为，如信任。行为实验将在社交焦虑得分高和低的参与者中进行。根据我们以前的研究结果，预计社交化学信号的行为影响在经历高水平社交焦虑的人中更强。

Chemosensory signals of anxiety increase the perceptual acuity for social signals of danger and they prime withdrawal related motor systems. As chemosensory signals of anxiety are processed within brain areas regulating empathic feelings it is proposed that these chemosignals convey feelings of anxiety from the sender to the perceiver. In addition, people suffering from social anxiety seem to process and react to chemosensory signals of anxiety stronger than non-anxious individuals. Here, it is aimed to investigate whether also overt social behavior in socially anxious and non-socially anxious participants is affected in the context of these chemosignals. Sweat will be sampled while the odor donors participate in the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST, group testing) and while they are performing an easy ergometer training (control condition). The experimental part of the project will be related to the behavioral outcome of signal processing in the perceiver. As chemosginals of anxiety probably serve to inform conspecifics about a potential danger, it is expected that gender specific stress-related behavioral responses are going to be evoked in the context of chemosignals of anxiety. While men might respond to chemosensory anxiety signals with fight or flight behavior, in females, tend- and befriend behavior might be affected. Therefore, it is intended to set up two different measures of behavioral stress responses: one of which will be related to aggression and defense, the other one will be related to social binding, such as trust. It is expected that males respond to these chemosignals with an increased readiness to show overt aggression. However, in females the perception of chemosensory stress signals should activate an increased readiness to show binding behavior, such as trust. The behavioral experiments will be carried out with participants scoring high and low in social anxiety. In accordance with our previous findings, it is expected that the behavioral effects of the social chemosignals with be stronger in people experiencing high levels of social anxiety.