Androstadienone Ineffective If VNO Is Blocked

[Irish]

Interesting approach - instead of wrangling about in the VNO debate (it's not wired up to the brain,

can't prove it works so it doesn't, etc.), simply do a counter-experiment!

It's well established that

androstadienone has various effects on women. Soooo... how 'bout blocking their VNOs and see if androstadienone

still has an effect? Guess what - block the VNO and you block the effects:



http://www.ecro2006.com/eng/modules/news/a

rticle.php?storyid=241

Hey, they used to say the human appendix was a useless vestigal organ too (has an

immune system function turns out, maybe more)...

It's preliminary info with more verification to be done. If

the little VNO does turn out to be truly operational lets digest that truth and move on...

[DrSmellThis]

Yep, that's a good, logical

approach.

I wonder if they were able to block the VNO without affecting the rest of olfaction, though. That is

a possible confound, and unfortunately the main thing you have to tease out.

Methodology bears a closer look.

[belgareth]

Interesting. It looks like a

well designed and controlled experiment. Do you know what year it was done? All I saw on dates was September 6th.

[Gegogi]

Hmm, I was just reading the VNO

lacks nerve pathways to the brain.

I agree, short of surgery or a nose plug it would be extremely difficult to

block the VNO and not block the main scent organs.

[belgareth]

We'll have to see. That's a

pretty high end group to make such an obvious blunder. Of course, we won't know if/until more information becomes

available. Makes for some interesting thoughts though if it is true.

[Irish]

Yes, they seem to have the same

concern that they were blocking only the VNO, and not olfactory surface as well.

But this is still a

fundamentally better test than what the Erox folk were doing... they were administering the pherins directly to the

VNO through some device, and measuring electrical potential changes on the VNO. I'm not saying they didn't pull

that off, but that's a pretty difficult medical and engineering task. Blocking off the VNO sounds a whole lot

simpler. And now that -dienone effects are well established this seems to be a clever experiment to test for

possible VNO activity.

[DrSmellThis]

It's a big deal. If you

interfere in any way shape or form with normal olfaction -- even in a strictly emotional way, for example; or if you

simply distress the olfactory system via your procedures -- you don't know to what extent you're measuring VNO

mediated changes. The whole bottom falls out of the study. I'm skeptical, for methodological reasons, rather than

theoretical ones.

That might be the reason for the delay in publishing the results, for all I know. It's way

more likely a methodological problem, than some kind of belief about the VNO one way or the other.

One way to

solve that kind of problem, or to get a little closer to a solution (someone will find another valid

criticism almost every time), is using various control groups.

So if you're blocking the VNO with some kind of

a patch, for example, you put identical patches near but not on the VNO for other groups, to rule out the patch

itself as a "confound" (as inadvertently causing the results to some extent). But that's hard if you can't

pinpoint each person's VNO precisely. Individual physiological variations are common here, unfortunately. So

ideally you'd have more than one method of blocking the VNO, until enough reliability/validity studies have been

done for your favorite procedure. Research is really hard! It could easily take a decade just to refine the

procedure (to shut up everyone who wants to shoot holes in your research program).

As my advisor once said, and

this is my favorite quote from him, BTW, "you really have to bend over backwards to study human sexuality".



Belagareth, it's not uncommon to be shocked at basic problems that professional researchers (much less

"unprofessional" ones) leave unsolved/unaddressed; while still gleefully trumpeting their results from the highest

mountaintop. I take little for granted. That is because humans are exceedingly difficult to study.

That is why

people should have to become experts on research methodology, as a prerequisite for studying anything human,

especially at the level of complexity of human sexuality/relationships. The basic state of affairs is thinking

you've got it figured out while you don't; until you learn as a mature scientist to mistrust fully your own

"beliefs".

[DrSmellThis]

Our results points

against a role of the human main OE in processing the physiological and psychological effects of AND in humans.

However more experiments assaying the impact of VNOblock on the sniff volumes will be performed by ECRO meeting to

insure that the main OE was equally exposed to AND.

That seems to explain the delay in publishing, as I

expected. I hadn't read the abstract carefully. It has nothing to do with any diminished enthusiasm about their

preliminary findings about the role of the VNO.

I like their approach, overall. It's not without holes, but no

study is. It's probably a good start.

I'd still like to see the whole write up to understand more about their

"VNOblock" procedures. I like that they try both physical and chemical blocks, for the reason I mentioned, and at

least attempt to demonstrate whether standard olfaction is impeded by procedures. More control groups will be

needed, obviously. Sounds like they're doing some of the things they need to be doing. May as well wait 'till you

can really hit people between the eyes with it.

My hunch is that a significant finding is brewing. I see no

theoretical reason for cynicism. It looks like the preliminary results were highly significant.

Before too

long, the VNO might be back in a big way. So my advice, as always, is to be very careful what you conclude, at this

point.

[belgareth]

Please note that I split out

the off topic stuff and put it into a new thread in Open Discussion, where it belongs. The new thread is called

Science Debate.