INFORMATION-PROCESSING IN CHEMOSENSORY EXPERIENCE

描述（由申请人提供）：对环境健康风险认知的差异和对空气中化学物质接触的不良反应对决策者、医学界和公众构成了一个复杂的公共卫生挑战。该项目的目标是开发一个综合的因素图，以确定空气中化学物质暴露的主观体验如何与(1)由化学物质直接引起的感官和生理影响以及(2)涉及感知、记忆和判断的心理过程有关，这些心理过程可以间接调节化学物质暴露对健康的影响。到目前为止，我们的研究结果继续支持这样的观点，即在健康个体中，与化学物质或暴露情况相关的预期，受到暴露史或人格类型等因素的调节，导致个体对化学物质暴露的反应发生显著变化。这些因素可能会加强，从而对已有呼吸系统疾病（如哮喘）的个人产生更大的公共卫生影响。目前的提议将通过研究哮喘患者来扩展我们对认知信念、期望和对气味和刺激物的生理反应之间的相互作用的理解，对哮喘患者来说，化学暴露的感知和实际健康风险都更大。这项工作将有助于更好地确定近1700万美国人接触一系列气味化学物质对呼吸系统健康的影响，并可能通过自主调节和反馈确定治疗方法，这可能对改善这些人对一系列空气中化学物质暴露的不良反应特别有用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Variation in the perception of environmental health risks and adverse response to airborne chemical exposures constitutes a complex public health challenge for policy makers, the medical profession and the public. The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive map of factors that determine how the subjective experience from an airborne chemical exposure is related to (1) the sensory and physiological effects that are directly elicited by the chemical and (2) the psychological processes involved in perception, memory and judgment that can indirectly mediate health effects from chemical exposures. Our findings to date continue to support the perspective that among healthy individuals, expectancies related to the chemical or the exposure situation, modulated by factors such as exposure history or personality type, lead to significant variation in an individual's response to a chemical exposure. These factors are likely to be enhanced and consequently have a greater public health impact for individuals with pre-existing respiratory disease, such as asthma. The current proposal will extend our understanding of the interaction between cognitive beliefs, expectancies and physiological responses to odors and irritants by studying those of asthmatics, for whom there is both greater perceived and actual health risk from chemical exposures. This effort will lead to better identification of the respiratory health impact of exposure to a range of odorous chemicals for nearly 17 million Americans, and may possibly identify therapies via autonomic regulation and feedback that may be particularly useful for ameliorating the adverse response of these individuals to a range of airborne chemical exposures.