Three baby mice. Image credit: CC0
The environment that animals are exposed to early in life can influence their subsequent rate of development, reproduction and aging. Experiments done in rodents have shown that social stimuli such as odours from the same sex or opposite sex individuals can affect the age at which sexual maturity is reached. Variations in age of sexual maturity are directly correlated with median lifespans of mice, with strong associations observed between later sexual maturity and longer lifespans in female mice.
Detailed experiments exposing female or male mice to scents from mice of the same or another sex strongly suggest that growing up smelling the same sex can delay sexual maturity, while scents from another sex can hasten it. Interestingly, mice that lacked the cells that sense odours do not change their age of sexual maturity in response to scents from the opposite sex. This ability to steer one’s developmental timeline depending on environmental cues may allow animals to prepare for future environments. But can it also influence an animal’s lifespan?
To answer this question, Garratt et al. observed the lifespans of female and male mice under different conditions. Mice were exposed to same-sex or other-sex odours, in the form of urine or soiled bedding, from day 3 to day 60 of their lives. The results showed that female mice exposed to odours from other females exhibited an increased lifespan, as compared to those not exposed to scents, while those exposed to odours from males did not show any change in their lifespan. In striking contrast, male mice exposed to odours from either sex showed no variation in their lifespans. The impairment of a particular type of odour-sensing neuron in mice did not change these results, making it likely that another neuron type is responsible for the changes in lifespan observed in the female mice.
These experiments elegantly demonstrate that exposure to certain sensory information, in this case scent, can change how long mammals live. While similar effects involving smells are unlikely to influence lifespan in humans, it is possible that other types of sensory information affect our health and how we age.
