Slashdot Mirror
Lavender's Soothing Scent Could Be More Than Just Folk Medicine (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In a study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, [physiologist and neuroscientist Hideki Kashiwadani] and his colleagues found that sniffing linalool, an alcohol component of lavender odor, was kind of like popping a Valium (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). It worked on the same parts of a mouse's brain, but without all the dizzying side effects. And it didn't target parts of the brain directly from the bloodstream, as was thought. Relief from anxiety could be triggered just by inhaling through a healthy nose. Their findings add to a growing body of research demonstrating anxiety-reducing qualities of lavender odors and suggest a new mechanism for how they work in the body. Dr. Kashiwadani believes this new insight is a key step in developing lavender-derived compounds like linalool for clinical use in humans.
In this study, they exposed mice to linalool vapor, wafting from filter paper inside a specially made chamber to see if the odor triggered relaxation. Mice on linalool were more open to exploring, indicating they were less anxious than normal mice. And they didn't behave like they were drunk, as mice on benzodiazepines, a drug used to treat anxiety, or injected with linalool did. But the linalool didn't work when they blocked the mice's ability to smell, or when they gave the mice a drug that blocks certain receptors in the brain. This suggested that to work, linalool tickled odor-sensitive neurons in the nose that send signals to just the right spots in the brain -- the same ones triggered by Valium.
In this study, they exposed mice to linalool vapor, wafting from filter paper inside a specially made chamber to see if the odor triggered relaxation. Mice on linalool were more open to exploring, indicating they were less anxious than normal mice. And they didn't behave like they were drunk, as mice on benzodiazepines, a drug used to treat anxiety, or injected with linalool did. But the linalool didn't work when they blocked the mice's ability to smell, or when they gave the mice a drug that blocks certain receptors in the brain. This suggested that to work, linalool tickled odor-sensitive neurons in the nose that send signals to just the right spots in the brain -- the same ones triggered by Valium.
There's a long history of scents affecting many real physical attributes, so it's no surprise that something as commonly loved as Lavender would have such an effect also.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A cure for nervous mice that won't produce dangerous or unpleasant side effects.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Maybe there was something wrong with it, but the following was done 20 years ago:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Can anyone explain why mice needed to be studied when it looks like human studies were already done with a few different "types" (again, not a chemist here) of linalool?
Thanks.
-
But the linalool didn't work when they blocked the mice's ability to smell
Imagine your whole life being the person who has to fit tiny nose plugs on mice - and then get them off again later and wash them for re-use.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Roche: Oh crap... something with effects similar to our product that isn't a controlled substance....
* Has lobbyists call up buddies in the DEA and congress *
Ban it! Ban It! Ban it! This is a threat
..... 3 months later ....
Cultivating lavender, possessing any lavender or lavender products.... Now illegal.
It makes me want to vomit. Its the worst scent/flavor ever. Not suitable for anything imo. Should be BANNED!
Clickety Click
Better yet, go to Provence in France, and walk through the lavender fields.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
One obvious question would be whether it replaces Valium only in treatment of mental health or also in its treatment of muscular injuries.
Anything that gets your brains to produce endorphins will have an affect. A joke, a massage, a good snack with various food types, you could do it your self with meditation techniques that produce endorphins, hell if you have a sprained wrist, I could make that pain go away by breaking you legs. Obviously the pain in your legs would dominate your conciousness but that agony would also get your brain to release more endorphins which would be enough to silence the pain in your wrist and go some way to mitigating the pain in your leg, not completely of course but such is life ;D.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Give a dog a coke, which many people think smells good.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Given the study in TFA and the anecdotal report from OP, perhaps she's smarter than you too.
Anything that gets your brains to produce endorphins will have an affect.
This study seems to suggest the linalool is affecting GABA transmission, not endorphins. In other words, it would seem to reduce nerve excitability in general, not specifically pain signals.
Once it's been empirically evaluated and found to be effective, it's just medicine. Just because something is a hippy-dippy, tree-hugging belief, doesn't automatically make it incorrect.
If you think that she believes in a lot of other things that are demonstrably wrong through evidence, this provides a good opportunity since you can clearly point to something she already believes in and has personal experience with as having been scientifically validated. Perhaps she'll give more credence to science than she otherwise would and might be more willing to examine her other beliefs through that lens.