Human Skin Contains An Odor Receptor That Responds To Sandalwood Smells By Enhanced Healing [1]

It was recently discovered that your skin has it's own neurons [2] that can "think", and now it's been found that skin can smell too! It turns out the aroma from sandalwood [3], long considered sacred by Hindus, Buddhists and Sufis, triggers skin cells to heal more quickly. From neomatica.com:

German researchers have discovered that there is an odor receptor expressed in at least keratinocytes, a major skin cell type, and that this receptor, when stimulated, activates a number of cellular pathways that lead to important skin repair... Experiments showed that exposing the human skin cells to Sandalore [synthetic sandalwood extract] caused the cells to proliferate (or multiply) 32% more than unexposed cells.  The exposed cells also exhibited “migration”, or enhanced movement.  The combination of proliferation and migration is a strong sign that the wound-repair pathways were being activated.  When the skin is injured, new skin cells must undergo motion to the edge of the injury to grow.  Indeed, an experimentally set-up “wound scratch” assay showed that in laboratory conditions, the skin cells after exposure to Sandalore closed up artificially induced wounds quickly.

http://www.neomatica.com/2014/10/23/human-skin-contains-odor-receptor-responds-sandalwood-smells-enhanced-healing/ [4]