GUSTATORY AND OLFACTORY CHANGES WITH AGE

白宫老龄问题会议将大量注意力集中在 老年人的营养需求，以味觉和嗅觉受损为理由 导致饮食不足的主要因素。在研究期间完成的 这笔赠款的过程表明，与年龄有关的食物损失很大 中度损害老年人的认知和嗅觉辨别能力 在口味上。随着年龄的增长，这些减少量在不同刺激下并不是一致的， 然而。例如，氨基酸L-谷氨酸的味道损失 和L-天冬氨酸大于L-赖氨酸和 L-亮氨酸。这项拨款提出了一系列实验，以探索 造成这些不均匀递减的机制。首先，一群 利尿剂将涂在舌头上，浸入滤纸中，以 对进展中描述的异常重要的调查结果采取后续行动 有报道称，特定的离子通路参与了味觉感知。 离子传输的具体模式将使用1)详细描述 阿米洛利，一种钠离子通道阻滞剂，2)环状利尿剂布美他尼， Na+K+2Cl-转运抑制剂，3)其他环状利尿剂，速尿 和乙炔酸，以及4)这些特定抑制剂与 目的研究动力学关系。二、简单化、标准化 将开发一种测试来评估味道和气味随年龄的变化。这个 测试还将用于确定化学感官损失的程度 都与老年人服用的药物有关。第三，不统一 随着年龄的增长，吡嗪类化合物的辨别力将进一步下降 探索过了。许多食物的成分--吡嗪--将具有交叉适应性。 以调查它们是否使用相似的受体位置。的模式。 交叉适应将通过多维尺度程序进行分析 所产生的空间将使用 定量药物设计。物理属性，如西格玛值和 将检查分配系数以预测非共价 感觉气味的过程中涉及到情感的结合。最后，具体的公式 为了在食品中添加商业香料，将为 老年人嗅觉丧失的实用处理。

The White House Conference on Aging focused much attention on the nutritional needs of the elderly, citing impairment of taste and smell as major factors leading to an inadequate diet. Research done during the course of this grant indicates substantial age-related loss in food recognition and smell discrimination in the aged with more moderate losses in taste. These decrements with age are not uniform across stimuli, however. For example, the taste losses for the amino acids L-glutamic acid and L-aspartic acid are greater than for the amino acids L-lysine and L-leucine. This grant proposes a series of experiments to explore the mechanisms responsible for these nonuniform decrements. First, a group of diuretics will be applied to the tongue, impregnated in filter paper, to follow up on the exceptionally important findings described in the progress report that specific ion pathways are involved in taste perception. Specific modes of ion transport will be exhaustively delineated using 1) amiloride, a Na+ channel blocker, 2) the loop diuretic bumetanide, an inhibitor of Na+ K+ 2Cl- contransport, 3) other loop diuretics, furosemide and ethacrynic acid, and 4) mixtures of these specific inhibitors with the aim in view of studying kinetic relations. Second, a simple standardized test will be developed to evaluate taste and smell changes with age. The test will also be used to determine the degree to which chemosensory losses are related to medications taken by the elderly. Third, the nonuniform loss in discriminability among pyrazines with age will be further explored. Pyrazines, the constituents of many foods, will be cross-adapted to investigate whether they use similar receptor sites. The patterns of cross-adaptation will be analyzed by multidimensional scaling procedures and the resultant spaces will be interpreted with techniques used in quantitative drug design. Physical properties such as sigma values and partition coefficients will be examined to predict whether noncovalent bonding is involved in the perception of odor. Finally, specific formulas for addition of commercial odorants to foods will be developed for practical handling of olfactory losses in elderly person.