Trial reportScientific reports2025
A quasi-randomised pilot study on the efficacy and perceived usefulness of adding chemosignals to mindfulness practice for women with social anxiety.
Trial report in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- From female to female: Communication via chemosignals.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Body odours (BOs) of individuals in specific emotional states can influence receivers' responses - referred to as an emotional contagion. To investigate the potential of BOs to enhance the effects of mindfulness practice, this quasi-randomised pilot study tested the hypothesis that participants exposed to emotional BOs during mindfulness meditation would exhibit a steeper decrease in state anxiety symptoms compared to mindfulness alone (clean air control). Ninety-eight women meeting criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) received two mindfulness sessions over two consecutive days, while randomly allocated to one of four conditions: fear BO, joy BO, neutral BO or a clean air control group. No odour × time interaction effect was observed, rejecting the primary hypothesis. Although not statistically significant, effect size estimates suggested a greater reduction in state anxiety for the group receiving fear chemosignals (Day 1 Cohen's d = 0.26, Day 2 Cohen's d = 0.54) compared to the clean air control group. Moreover, the BO groups perceived the mindfulness practice as significantly more helpful compared to the control group (p = 0.002). Given the sample size limits, a larger Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) incorporating more mindfulness + BO sessions is recommended to further examine the therapeutic potential of human BOs.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.