{"id":2566,"date":"2015-09-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vermont.salk.edu\/news-release\/can-your-sense-of-smell-predict-when-youll-die\/"},"modified":"2015-11-15T08:10:36","modified_gmt":"2015-11-15T16:10:36","slug":"can-your-sense-of-smell-predict-when-youll-die","status":"publish","type":"disclosure","link":"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/news-release\/can-your-sense-of-smell-predict-when-youll-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Can your sense of smell predict when you’ll die?"},"content":{"rendered":"

LA JOLLA\u2013By measuring how worms move toward an appealing, food-like scent, researchers at the Salk Institute were able to predict whether the worms would be long-lived. The finding, published September 22, 2015 in the journal eLife<\/em><\/a>, shows how nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans<\/em>) process information about the environment and how circuits in the brain change as an animal ages.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re not saying that your ability to smell is going to make you live longer,\u201d says Sreekanth Chalasani<\/a>, an assistant professor in Salk\u2019s \u5206\u5b50\u795e\u7ecf\u751f\u7269\u5b66\u5b9e\u9a8c\u5ba4<\/a>. \u201cBut this odor behavior is likely indicative of some kind of underlying physiology.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe small C. elegans<\/em> has 12 pairs of specialized neurons in its brain that detect stimuli in the environment. Scientists had previously identified individual pairs of these neurons as required for the animals to respond to attractive odors. Chalasani and his colleagues wanted to understand this entire process in more detail. In their new work, the researchers measured the responses of all 24 neurons as C. elegans<\/em> was exposed to benzaldehyde\u2013a chemical that gives off a pleasant, almond-like smell. Surprisingly, rather than the individual pairs that had been previously shown, they found that additional neurons were also involved.\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sreekanth Chalasani, a Salk assistant professor, measured the neural responses of worms exposed to a chemical that gives off an almond-like smell. By measuring how fast the worms moved toward the food-like scent, researchers able to predict whether the worms would be long-lived.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for a high-resolution image.<\/p>\n

\nImage: Courtesy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nInterestingly, these cells were divided into primary and secondary neurons. Primary neurons showed activity in response to the benzaldehyde, while secondary neurons responded to signals sent by the primary neurons. By having a neural circuit structured like this, the team hypothesizes, the worm can get better information on the strength or concentration of a smell.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf you have multiple different cells that are all detecting a stimulus, you can use the combination of them to get more dynamic information,\u201d says Sarah Leinwand, a graduate student in the Chalasani lab and first author of the new paper. \u201cUsing this strategy allows an animal to generate flexible behavioral responses to its environment.\u201d For instance, some behaviors could only be triggered when a smell is strong enough to cause activity in particular combinations of neurons. The researchers speculate that other species with larger brains may use similarly structured neural circuits to represent sensory information and fine-tune their behaviors.\n<\/p>\n

\nSince they knew that worms (like other animals and people) often begin to lose their sense of smell with age, Chalasani and Leinwand next measured how the circuit composed of primary and secondary neurons changes as C. elegans<\/em> gets older. While the primary neurons don\u2019t show a decline in activity, they found, secondary neurons become less active with age. This suggests that communication between neurons could be degraded as animals age, Chalasani says, a phenomenon which might also hold true in other neural circuits in many different species. The scientists went on to show a correlation between poor performance on a smell-based test (moving toward a point source of benzaldehyde), the activity of secondary neurons and the animal\u2019s lifespan. Older animals that were more successful in finding the odor lived about 16% longer than animals that were less good at moving toward the smell.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cEven though all these animals are siblings and have similar genomes, if you look at neuron activity, behavioral performance, or lifespan, there are significant differences,\u201d says Chalasani. \u201cPerhaps that\u2019s because some animals have better signaling between primary and secondary cells.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nIf the signaling between neurons ends up being important in how other organisms \u2013including humans\u2013age, then manipulating the nervous system may prove a fruitful way to minimize the effects of aging or rejuvenate brain functions, he says.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere are a lot of questions that remain about what exactly is changing as an animal ages,\u201d says Leinwand. \u201cWe want to keep looking at what is changing to cause some animals to have better functioning nervous systems and to live longer.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n

\nOther researchers on the study were Claire Yang of the Salk Institute, Daphne Bazopoulou and Nikos Chronis of the University of Michigan, and Jagan Srinivasan of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe work and the researchers involved were supported by the Rita Allen Foundation<\/a>, the W.M. Keck Foundation<\/a>, the National Institutes of Health<\/a>, Achievements Rewards for College Scientists<\/a> and the National Science Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","faculty":[77],"disease-research":[],"class_list":["post-2566","disclosure","type-disclosure","status-publish","hentry","faculty-sreekanth-chalasani"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCan your sense of smell predict when you'll die? - Salk Institute for Biological Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/news-release\/can-your-sense-of-smell-predict-when-youll-die\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"zh_CN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can your sense of smell predict when you'll die? - Salk Institute for Biological Studies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"LA JOLLA\u2013By measuring how worms move toward an appealing, food-like scent, researchers at the Salk Institute were able to predict whether the worms would be long-lived. 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