Androstenol exposure elicits a luteinizing hormone (LH) response in women. Including androstenol and androsterone

in the SoE/men formula allows for the likelihood of LH conditioning to androsterone, and downstream effects on

estrogen and testosterone levels in women. The following exerpts support this explanation, and helps to explain why

women (and men) develop odor preferences that correlate in some cases with sexual

preferences.

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Graham and Desjardins (1980) reported a conditioned increase in

serum testosterone and luteinizing hormone in male rats following access to a wintergreen odor previously paired

with copulation to ejaculation. Males in an unpaired control group did not show any increase in hormone levels

following exposure to the odor. However, males in both groups exposed to estrous vaginal secretions showed identical

increases in these hormones, which suggests that unconditioned hormone release is mimicked reliably following

pairing of odor with sexual reward.

In summary, female rats can learn to associate a neutral odor
with

sexual reward. An odor paired with the ability of females to
pace copulation becomes a sexual incentive, such

that males bearing the odor are preferred when females are given a choice between scented and unscented males. Thus,

just like male rats,
female rats can learn to modify their sexual behavior and partner
preferences on the

basis of experience with sexual reward. This
confirms that early sexual experiences have particularly

powerful
influences on subsequent sexual preferences and that the development of sexual preferences is influenced

by interactions between conditioned stimulus– unconditioned stimulus pairings and motivational

variables.
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Reference:Coria-Avila GA, Ouimet AJ, Pacheco P, Manzo J,

Pfaus JG. Olfactory conditioned partner preference in the female rat.
Behav Neurosci. 2005 Jun;119(3):716-25.