Exploring Chemical Sensing: Smell, Taste, and Biological Modulation

This episode explains how we sense chemicals through smell, taste, and pheromones. How things smell and taste and chemicals in the tears, breath, and on the skin of others have a profound effect on how we feel, what we do, and our hormones. I explain the 3 types of responses to smell, the 5 types of tastes, the possible existence of sixth taste sense, and how the act of sniffing can make us learn and focus better. I explain how smell and taste reflect brain health and can assess and even promote brain regeneration. I discuss how eating specific categories of foods makes us crave more of those foods, including how to make sour things taste sweet and develop a heightened sense of smell and taste. 

Read the full show notes for this episode at hubermanlab.com.

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Timestamps

00:00:00 Introduction

00:06:02 Sensing Chemicals: Smell, Taste & Chemicals That People Make To Control Each Other

00:09:10 Vision Protocols Recap (Brief) & Correction

00:12:20 Color Vision: Excellent Resource: What is Color? (The Book)

00:13:54 How We Sense Chemicals: Enter Our Nose, Mouth, Eyes, Skin

00:17:28 The Chemicals From Other People’s Tears Lower Testosterone & Libido

00:21:16 SMELL: Sniffing, A Piece of Your Brain In Your Nose, 3 Responses To Smells

00:24:40 Smells & Memory: Why They Are So Powerfully Associated

00:26:40 Pheromone Effects: Spontaneous Miscarriage, Males & Timing Female Puberty

00:28:56 Sniffing Creates Alertness & If Done Properly Can Help You Focus & Learn Better

00:34:00 Protocol 1: Sniffing (Nothing) 10-15X Enhances Your Ability to Smell & Taste

00:35:50 Smelling Salts, Ammonia & Adrenaline 

00:38:25 How You Can Become A Human Scent Hound, Detecting Cancer, & Tasting Better

00:43:45 Smell As A Readout Of Brain Health & Longevity; Regaining Lost Sense Of Smell

00:48:30 Dopamine, Sense Of Smell, New Neurons & New Relationships

00:50:20 Why Brain Injury Causes Loss Of Smell; Using Smell To Gauge & Speed Recovery 

00:53:33 Using Smell To Immediately Becoming Physically Stronger

00:54:40 Smelling In Our Dreams, Active Sniffing In Sleep, Sniffing As a Sign Of Consciousness

00:57:35 Mint Scents Create Alertness By Activating Broad Wake-Up Pathways 

00:59:48 Protocol 2 Pleasant Or Putrid: The Microwave Popcorn Test, Cilantro, Asparagus, Musk

01:03:00 Skunks, Costello, All Quiet On The Western Front  

01:04:32 TASTE: Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Umami, Sour; Your Tongue, Gustatory Nerve, NST, Cortex

01:08:45 Energy, Electrolytes, Poisons, Gagging, Amino Acid & Fatty Acid Sensing, Fermentation

01:13:48 Our 6th Sense of Taste: FAT Sensing

01:15:05 Gut-Brain: Your Mouth As An Extension Of Your Gut; Burned Mouth & Regeneration

01:19:30 Protocol 3: Learn To Be A Super-Taster By Top-Down Behavioral Plasticity

01:22:20 The Umami-Sweet Distinction: Tigers Versus Pandas

01:25:05 Eating More Plants Versus Eating More Meat, Cravings & Desire

01:27:15 Food That Makes You Feel Good Or Bad: Taste Receptors On Our Testes Or Ovaries

01:30:05 Biological Basis For The Sensuality of Umami and Sweet Foods

01:32:28 Appetitive & Aversive Sensing: Touching Certain Surfaces, Tasting Certain Foods

01:33:35 Amino Acids Are Key To Life, The Maillard Reaction, Smell-Taste Merge, Food Texture

01:39:00 How Processed Food Make You Crave More Processed Foods

01:39:44 Protocol 4: Invert Your Sense of Sweet & Sour: Miracle Fruit; Swapping Bitter & Sweet

01:43:03 Pheromones, Desire To Continue Mating: Coolidge Effect Occurs In Males & Females

01:46:40 Do Women Influence Each Others Menstrual Cycles? 

01:49:19 Recognizing the Smell Of Your Romantic Partner 

01:50:30 Differences In Odor Detection Ability, Effects Of Hormones

01:53:00 We Rub The Chemicals Of Others On Our Eyes and Skin, Bunting Behavior

01:56:40 Summary

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