Olfaction scaffolds the developing human from neonate to adolescent and beyond

The impact of the olfactory sense is regularly apparent across development. The foetus is bathed in amniotic fluid that conveys the mother’s chemical ecology. Transnatal olfactory continuity between the odours of amniotic fluid and milk assists in the transition to nursing. At the same time, odours emanating from the mammary areas provoke appetitive responses in newborns. Odours experienced from the mother’s diet during breastfeeding, and from practices such as pre-mastication, may assist in the dietary transition at weaning. In parallel, infants are attracted to and recognise their mother’s odours; later, children are able to recognise other kin and peers based on their odours. Familiar odours, such as those of the mother, regulate the child’s emotions, and scaffold perception and learning through non-olfactory senses. During adolescence, individuals become more sensitive to some bodily odours, while the timing of adolescence itself has been speculated to draw from the chemical ecology of the family unit. Odours learnt early in life and within the family niche continue to influence preferences as mate choice becomes relevant. Olfaction thus appears significant in turning on, sustaining and, in cases when mother odour is altered, disturbing adaptive reciprocity between offspring and caregiver during the multiple transitions of development between birth and adolescence

The odor context facilitates the perception of low-intensity facial expressions of emotion

It has been established that the recognition of facial expressions integrates contextual information. In this study, we aimed to clarify the influence of contextual odors. The participants were asked to match a target face varying in expression intensity with non-ambiguous expressive faces. Intensity variations in the target faces were designed by morphing expressive faces with neutral faces. In addition, the influence of verbal information was assessed by providing half the participants with the emotion names. Odor cues were manipulated by placing participants in a pleasant (strawberry), aversive (butyric acid), or no-odor control context. The results showed two main effects of the odor context. First, the minimum amount of visual information required to perceive an expression was lowered when the odor context was emotionally congruent: happiness was correctly perceived at lower intensities in the faces displayed in the pleasant odor context, and the same phenomenon occurred for disgust and anger in the aversive odor context. Second, the odor context influenced the false perception of expressions that were not used in target faces, with distinct patterns according to the presence of emotion names. When emotion names were provided, the aversive odor context decreased intrusions for disgust ambiguous faces but increased them for anger. When the emotion names were not provided, this effect did not occur and the pleasant odor context elicited an overall increase in intrusions for negative expressions. We conclude that olfaction plays a role in the way facial expressions are perceived in interaction with other contextual influences such as verbal information

Psychological Balance in High Level Athletes: Gender-Based Differences and Sport-Specific Patterns

OBJECTIVES: Few epidemiological studies have focused on the psychological health of high level athletes. This study aimed to identify the principal psychological problems encountered within French high level athletes, and the variations in their prevalence based on sex and the sport practiced. METHODS: Multivariate analyses were conducted on nationwide data obtained from the athletes' yearly psychological evaluations. RESULTS: A representative sample of 13% of the French athlete population was obtained. 17% of athletes have at least one ongoing or recent disorder, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) being the most prevalent (6%), followed by non-specific eating disorders (4.2%). Overall, 20.2% of women had at least one psychopathology, against 15.1% in men. This female predominance applied to anxiety and eating disorders, depression, sleep problems and self-harming behaviors. The highest rates of GAD appeared in aesthetic sports (16.7% vs. 6.8% in other sports for men and 38.9% vs. 10.3% for women); the lowest prevalence was found in high risk sports athletes (3.0% vs. 3.5%). Eating disorders are most common among women in racing sports (14% vs. 9%), but for men were found mostly in combat sports (7% vs. 4.8%). DISCUSSION: This study highlights important differences in psychopathology between male and female athletes, demonstrating that the many sex-based differences reported in the general population apply to elite athletes. While the prevalence of psychological problems is no higher than in the general population, the variations in psychopathology in different sports suggest that specific constraints could influence the development of some disorders

DeepIso - A global open database of stable isotope ratios and elemental contents for deep-sea ecosystems.

Stable isotopes have been instrumental to many key-findings about deep-sea ecosystem functioning, particularly in chemosynthesis-based habitats (hydrothermal vents, cold seeps). However, constraining sampling logistics commonly limit the scope, extent, and therefore insights drawn from isotope-based deep-sea studies. Overall, much is left to discover about factors globally influencing food web structure in deep-sea ecosystems. In this context, it is crucial that all generated data are easily discoverable, available and reusable. DeepIso is a collaborative effort to produce a global compilation of stable isotope ratios and elemental contents in organisms from deep-sea ecosystems. In doing so, it aims to provide the deep-sea community with an open data analysis tool that can be used in the context of future ecological research, and to help deep-sea researchers to use stable isotope markers at their full efficiency. The database, accessible under CC-BY licence at https://doi.org/10.17882/76595, currently contains 18677 fully documented measurements. Archived parameters include δ13C (n = 4587), δ15N (n = 4388), δ34S (n = 951), %C (n = 2740), %N (n = 2741), %S (n = 752) and C/N ratio (n = 2518). Those measurements pertain to 4378 distinct samples belonging to 493 taxa, plus sediments, suspended particulate organic matter, plankton and detritus. Samples were taken between 1989 and 2018 in multiple environments (hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, cold water coral reefs, and other benthic or pelagic environments) and at depths ranging up to 5209 meters. To maximise the scope of the project, we are looking to integrate more data, either underlying published articles, from grey literature, or even unpublished. We’ll be happy to assist in data formatting and publication. If you are willing to contribute, or simply if you have feedback about the database, please get in touch via [email protected]

Building up DeepIso - A global open database of stable isotope ratios and elemental contents for deep-sea ecosystems.

Stable isotopes have been instrumental to many key-findings about deep-sea ecosystem functioning, particularly in chemosynthesis-based habitats (hydrothermal vents, cold seeps). However, constraining sampling logistics commonly limit the scope, extent, and therefore insights drawn from isotope-based deep-sea studies. Overall, much is left to discover about factors globally influencing food web structure in deep-sea ecosystems. In this context, it is crucial that all generated data are easily discoverable, available, and reusable. DeepIso is a collaborative effort to produce a global compilation of stable isotope ratios and elemental contents in organisms from deep-sea ecosystems. In doing so, it aims to provide the deep-sea community with an open data analysis tool that can be used in the context of future ecological research, and to help deep-sea researchers to use stable isotope markers at their full efficiency. The database, accessible under CC-BY licence at https://doi.org/10.17882/76595, currently contains 18677 fully documented measurements. Archived parameters include δ13C (n = 4587), δ15N (n = 4388), δ34S (n = 951), %C (n = 2740), %N (n = 2741), %S (n = 752) and C/N ratio (n = 2518). Those measurements pertain to 4378 distinct samples belonging to 493 taxa, plus sediments, suspended particulate organic matter, plankton and detritus. Samples were taken between 1989 and 2018 in multiple environments (hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, cold water coral reefs, and other benthic or pelagic environments) and at depths ranging up to 5209 meters. To maximise the scope of the project, we are looking to integrate more data, either underlying published articles, from grey literature, or even unpublished. We’ll be happy to assist in data formatting and publication. If you are willing to contribute, or simply if you have feedback about the database, please get in touch via [email protected]

Head Exposure to Cold during Whole-Body Cryostimulation: Influence on Thermal Response and Autonomic Modulation

Recent research on whole-body cryotherapy has hypothesized a major responsibility of head cooling in the physiological changes classically reported after a cryostimulation session. The aim of this experiment was to verify this hypothesis by studying the influence of exposing the head to cold during whole-body cryostimulation sessions, on the thermal response and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Over five consecutive days, two groups of 10 participants performed one whole-body cryostimulation session daily, in one of two different systems; one exposing the whole-body to cold (whole-body cryostimulation, WBC), and the other exposing the whole-body except the head (partial-body cryostimulation, PBC).10 participants constituted a control group (CON) not receiving any cryostimulation. In order to isolate the head-cooling effect on recorded variables, it was ensured that the WBC and PBC systems induced the same decrease in skin temperature for all body regions (mean decrease over the 5 exposures: -8.6°C±1.3°C and -8.3±0.7°C for WBC and PBC, respectively), which persisted up to 20-min after the sessions (P20). The WBC sessions caused an almost certain decrease in tympanic temperature from Pre to P20 (-0.28 ±0.11°C), while it only decreased at P20 (-0.14±0.05°C) after PBC sessions. Heart rate almost certainly decreased after PBC (-8.6%) and WBC (-12.3%) sessions. Resting vagal-related heart rate variability indices (the root-mean square difference of successive normal R-R intervals, RMSSD, and high frequency band, HF) were very likely to almost certainly increased after PBC (RMSSD:+49.1%, HF: +123.3%) and WBC (RMSSD: +38.8%, HF:+70.3%). Plasma norepinephrine concentration was likely increased in similar proportions after PBC and WBC, but only after the first session. Both cryostimulation techniques stimulated the ANS with a predominance of parasympathetic tone activation from the first to the fifth session and in slightly greater proportion with WBC than PBC. The main result of this study indicates that the head exposure to cold during whole-body cryostimulation may not be the main factor responsible for the effects of cryostimulation on the ANS

Parasympathetic Activity and Blood Catecholamine Responses Following a Single Partial-Body Cryostimulation and a Whole-Body Cryostimulation

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of a single whole-body cryostimulation (WBC) and a partial-body cryostimulation (PBC) (i.e., not exposing the head to cold) on indices of parasympathetic activity and blood catecholamines. Two groups of 15 participants were assigned either to a 3-min WBC or PBC session, while 10 participants constituted a control group (CON) not receiving any cryostimulation. Changes in thermal, physiological and subjective variables were recorded before and during the 20-min after each cryostimulation. According to a qualitative statistical analysis, an almost certain decrease in skin temperature was reported for all body regions immediately after the WBC (mean decrease±90% CL, -13.7±0.7°C) and PBC (-8.3±0.3°C), which persisted up to 20-min after the session. The tympanic temperature almost certainly decreased only after the WBC session (-0.32±0.04°C). Systolic and diastolic blood pressures were very likely increased after the WBC session, whereas these changes were trivial in the other groups. In addition, heart rate almost certainly decreased after PBC (-10.9%) and WBC (-15.2%) sessions, in a likely greater proportion for WBC compared to PBC. Resting vagal-related heart rate variability indices (the root-mean square difference of successive normal R-R intervals, RMSSD, and high frequency band, HF) were very likely increased after PBC (RMSSD: +54.4%, HF: +138%) and WBC (RMSSD: +85.2%, HF: +632%) sessions without any marked difference between groups. Plasma norepinephrine concentrations were likely to very likely increased after PBC (+57.4%) and WBC (+76.2%), respectively. Finally, cold and comfort sensations were almost certainly altered after WBC and PBC, sensation of discomfort being likely more pronounced after WBC than PBC. Both acute cryostimulation techniques effectively stimulated the autonomic nervous system (ANS), with a predominance of parasympathetic tone activation. The results of this study also suggest that a whole-body cold exposure induced a larger stimulation of the ANS compared to partial-body cold exposure

The milk “bouquet”, its effects on newborns, its composition

International audienc

Olfaction and gustation

International audienc