University of Alabama at Birmingham psychology professor Robert Sorge, Ph.D., recently published findings in Nature Methodsthat indicate the smell of male researchers causes a stress response that suppresses pain in mice and rats, while women have no effect on the test subjects.

Sorge worked primarily alongside researchers at McGill University and then in his lab in the Department of Psychology at UAB to conduct a study that evaluated stress levels in lab rodents. Lab mice and rats were placed in a room and observed by a man or woman. The effect on the pain levels of the animals was drastically different.