One hundred healthy elderly subjects (65-88 years) were tested for their ab
ility to: (i) assign verbal labels from a list of trigeminal type descripto
rs to six odorants known to have a strong trigeminal component; (ii) discri
minate between intensity-matched pairs of these odorants in an odd-ball par
adigm. Their performance was compared with that of 100 young controls (23-3
6 years). Young controls judged menthol and cineole as distinctly cool and
fresh, acetic cid as pungent and sour and acetone as pungent, but showed no
clear descriptive profile for ethanol and propanol. The descriptive profil
es given by the elderly subjects correlated significantly with those given
by the young controls for all six odorants and thus indicate a high degree
of conformity in trigeminal perception of chemosensory qualities between th
e two age groups. In the odd-ball test the young controls correctly discrim
inated an average of 8.0 of 9 stimulus pairs presented, with most mistakes
occurring in response to pairs with a similar trigeminal profile. With an a
verage of 6.4 of 9 items correct, the discrimination performance of the eld
erly subjects was significantly poorer than that of the young controls but
nevertheless significantly above chance at the group level with all 9 stimu
lus pairs. These results suggest that the nasal trigeminal system may exper
ience some degree of age-related impairment but still contributes considera
bly to the perception and discrimination of chemosensory qualities in the e
lderly.