ArticleCureus2023
Non-targeted Metabolomics Analysis Reveals Distinct Metabolic Profiles Between Positive and Negative Emotional Tears of Humans: A Preliminary Study.
Article in Cureus, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Targeted Metabolomic Profiling of Emotional and Reflex Tears: A Paired Exploratory Study.Metabolites · 2026Article
- MLN4924 inhibits macrophage foam cell formation by enhancing autophagy and regulating metabolic phenotype.Lipids in health and disease · 2025Article
- Biotin Homeostasis and Human Disorders: Recent Findings and Perspectives.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background Basal, reflex, and emotional tears differ in chemical components. It is not yet known whether chemical differences exist in tears of different emotions. We investigated the biochemical basis of emotional tears by performing non-targeted metabolomics analyses of positive and negative emotional tears of humans. Methods Samples of reflex, negative, and positive emotional tears were obtained from 12 healthy college participants (11 females and one male). Untargeted metabolomics was performed to identify metabolites in different types of tears. The differentially altered metabolites were screened and assessed using univariate and multivariate analyses. Results The orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis model showed that reflex, negative, and positive emotional tears were clearly separated. A total of 133 significantly differentially expressed metabolites of electrospray ionization source (ESI-) mode were identified between negative and positive emotional tears. The top 50 differentially expressed metabolites between negative and positive emotional tears were highly correlated. Pathway analysis revealed that secretion of negative emotional tears was associated with some synapses in the brain, regulation of a series of endocrine hormones, including the estrogen signaling pathway, and inflammation activities, while secretion of positive emotional tears was correlated with biotin and caffeine metabolism. Conclusions It is indicated that metabolic profiles of reflex, positive, and negative emotional tears of humans are distinct, and secretion of the tears involves distinct biological activities. Therefore, we present a chemical method for detecting human emotions, which may become a powerful tool for the diagnosis of mental diseases and the identification of fake tears.
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Registered trials
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