Question

Your text provides an interesting explanationfor the "dormitory effect", in which women living (or sometimesworking) together tend to synchronize their menstrual cycles.Gonadotropin releasing hormone is not the only hypothalamichormone, of course, so we may wonder what other parts of thehypothalamo-hypophyseal portal system is responsive to a "living orworking in a group" effect. Perhaps we can smell when others are"stressed" and it causes us to change our levels of cortisol by amechanism similar to the "dormitory effect". Explain how thatpathway might work step-by-step, starting with the nose and endingwith the adrenal cortex, and then describe a simple experiment totest the idea.