Essentials: How Smell, Taste & Pheromones Shape Behavior

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I explore how your sense of smell (olfaction), taste, and chemical sensing influence memory, alertness, focus, and even communication between people. I explain how these senses help us detect chemicals in the environment and respond to a variety of environmental cues. I discuss the connection between the olfactory system and cognitive performance, and I provide practical tools to enhance learning, sensory function, and brain health. Additionally, I examine how chemical signals exchanged between people subtly influence emotions, biology, and social bonds. Huberman Lab Essentials episodes are approximately 30 minutes long and focus on key science and protocol takeaways from past Huberman Lab episodes. Essentials are released every Thursday, while full-length episodes continue to air every Monday. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Our Place: https://fromourplace.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Huberman Lab Essentials; Smell & Taste 00:02:04 Tears, Biological Response & Communication 00:05:16 Sponsor: AG1 00:07:16 Smell, Innate vs Learned Response, Memory 00:10:31 Accessory Olfactory Pathway, Pheromones, Vandenbergh effect 00:12:42 Smell & Alertness, Smelling Salts, Tool: Nasal Breathing & Learning 00:16:06 Tool: Increase Sense of Smell 00:16:51 Sponsor: LMNT 00:18:07 Smell, Brain Health, Olfactory Neurons, Tool: Improve Smell 00:20:11 Traumatic Brain Injury & Olfactory Dysfunction 00:22:25 Smell, Alertness, Smelling Salts, Tool: Peppermint 00:24:32 Taste Modalities & Functions; Taste & Digestive System 00:30:47 Sponsor: Our Place 00:32:39 Pheromones, Coolidge Effect, Humans & Chemical Communication 00:38:44 Recap & Key Takeaways Disclaimer & Disclosures

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.
0:11.3	I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:16.9	This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
0:20.4	Today, we're going to talk about chemical sensing.
0:23.3	We're going to talk about the sense of smell,
0:26.1	our ability to detect odors in our environment.
0:29.4	We're also gonna talk about taste,
0:31.3	our ability to detect chemicals
0:34.0	and make sense of chemicals that are put in our mouth and into our digestive tract.
0:39.3	And we are going to talk about chemicals
0:41.3	that are made by other human beings
0:43.3	that powerfully modulate the way that we feel,
0:46.3	our hormones, and our health.
0:48.3	Now that last category are sometimes called pheromones.
0:52.3	However, whether or not pheromones exist in humans is rather
0:56.3	controversial. There actually hasn't been a clear example of a true human pheromonal effect,
1:02.4	but what is absolutely clear, what is undeniable is that there are chemicals that human beings
1:09.1	make and release
1:11.1	in things like tears onto our skin and sweat
1:15.5	and even breath that powerfully modulate
1:18.9	or control the biology of other individuals.
1:22.0	There are things floating around in the environment,
	...

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