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，并启动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共情感觉的大脑区域内处理，因此提出这些化学信号将焦虑的感觉从发送者传递给感知者。此外，患有社交焦虑的人似乎比没有焦虑的人更能处理和反应焦虑的化学感觉信号。本研究旨在探讨这些化学信号是否也会影响社交焦虑和非社交焦虑参与者的显性社会行为。当气味供体参加特里尔社会压力测试（TSST，小组测试）和进行简单的测力训练（对照条件）时，将对汗液进行取样。该项目的实验部分将与感知者信号处理的行为结果有关。由于焦虑的化学信号可能起到告知异性潜在危险的作用，因此在焦虑化学信号的背景下，性别特异性的应激相关行为反应将被激发出来。男性对化学感觉焦虑信号的反应可能是战斗或逃跑行为，而女性的关怀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测量方法：一种是与攻击和防御相关的，另一种是与社会约束相关的，如信任。预计雄性对这些化学信号的反应是更愿意表现出明显的攻击性。然而，在女性中，对化学感觉压力信号的感知应该会激发她们更愿意表现出约束行为，比如信任。行为实验将在社交焦虑得分高和低的参与者中进行。根据我们之前的研究结果，我们预计社会化学信号对经历高水平社交焦虑的人的行为影响更大。

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.