Posted on: 02 March, 2017
Author: Alexander P
An example of a mammalian primer is a factor in top pheromones, the smell of which passively induces neural and hormonal changes in females which culminate in ovulation and sexual behavior 48-72 hours... An example of a mammalian primer is a factor in top pheromones, the smell of which passively induces neural and hormonal changes in females which culminate in ovulation and sexual behavior 48-72 hours later. All mammalian priming functions so far documented are associated in some way with the process of reproduction. Signalling pheromones apparently have diverse functions, but again most are associated with behaviors modulated by the reproductive hormones. Probably at this time we are wise to assume relatively few complex functions for signalling pheromones; primarily those of identication of species (race and/or co1ony?), individual, age, sex, sexual state, and fear. Unfortunately no mammalian primers and only a few signalling pheromones have been isolated and identied. Reasonable identication of signals has been accomplished for a tarsal gland pheromone in the black-tailed deer (Milller-Schwarze 1971) and for a vaginal sex attractant in the rhesus monkey (Michael et al. 1971). A third pheromone, an attractant found in the boar’s preputial, has been inclusively documented (e.g., Dutt et al. 1958; Sink 1967; Katkov and Gower 1968). Pheromonal sources have been localized in a variety of other species, however, and include urine and a variety of glands such as specialized and non-specialized sebaceous glands in the skin, eye and buccal cavity glands and sex accessory glands such as the preputial. Feces are often cited as a pheromone source but critical work is too often lacking. While good eld work is severely limited, some of the natural functions postulated for such presumed pheromones seem quite reasonable and, in terms of pheromone chemistry, there is every reason to assume an ability to isolate and synthesize many of these important factors according to http://hartch25.weebly.com/our-marketing-blog/i-started-using-ten-by-intense-pheromones As still another generality, an important and uniquely interesting feature of many pheromonal systems in mammals is their modiability. One would suspect, a priori, that most comparisons between mammalian and insect pheromonal systems, for example, would approximate the relationship between the capacities of their two distinctly different types of nervous systems. While it is no longer in vogue to refer to all of the insects’ behavioral repertoire as ‘stereotyped’, ‘stimulus-bound’, or other such‘ terminology inferring inexibility and complete programming by genetics, the mammalian nervous system nevertheless is decidedly more exible and its behavior definitely more experience-determined. Responses to pheromones among mammals are likewise decidedly variable and often experience-oriented. There are, for example, situations known for both signalling and priming pheromones where the response must be conditioned in association with the pheromone. There are other instances where olfactory experiences encountered early in the mammal’s life function to determine adult response to odors, both of these situations being quite typical of much non-pheromonally stimulated mammalian behavior. As an additional and more specific example of the modiability of mammalian systems, a female sex attractant may elicit an immediate response that varies considerably in strength, a response that may be positive or negative, or no response at all depending upon a variety of experiences and, hence, competing drives in the recipient male; e.g., his dominance status, the nearby presence of other males, sexual satiation, etc. Because of the strong interaction with experience in at least some mammalian phenomena, the term signalling rather than releasing seems a more reasonable modifier for that category of pheromones yielding an immediate effect on behavior (Bronson 1968). The former term, while admittedly somewhat redundant, implies only the passage of information without demanding a response. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com Alexander is a blogger who studies pheromones.