Sensitivity of the olfactory sense declines with the aging in senescence-accelerated mouse (SAM-P1)

The decline in olfaction with age is well documented in histological, psych ological, and electroencephalographical studies. However, there are few ele ctrophysiological studies on changes in the sensitivity of the peripheral o lfactory cells with age. We evaluated the behavior. the amplitude of electr o-olfactogram (EOG), and the thickness of the olfactory epithelium in the S enescence-Accelerated Mouse (SAM-P1). This strain of mouse exhibits acceler ated senescence and age-related pathologies, and it is commonly used as a m odel for research on aging. Its median survival time is 55 weeks. To ensure our results would be restricted to the olfactory system, we chose vanillin as a stimulus, because this stimulus has no definitive chorda tympani (VII ) response, and we verified that it is tasteless. The data demonstrate that olfactory sensitivity to vanillin decreases dramatically with age in these mice, and that this is due to loss in the number of olfactory receptor cel ls. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.