Age-related olfactory decline is associated with the BDNF val66met polymorphism: evidence from a population-based study
- 1 Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
- 2 Stockholm Brain Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
- 3 Department of Pharmacology, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden
- 4 Department of Radiation Sciences and Integrative Medical Biology, Umeå, Sweden
The present study investigates the effect of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) val66met polymorphism on change in olfactory function in a large scale, longitudinal population-based sample (n = 836). The subjects were tested on a 13 item force-choice odor identification test on two test occasions over a 5-year-interval. Sex, education, health-related factors, and semantic ability were controlled for in the statistical analyses. Results showed an interaction effect of age and BDNF val66met on olfactory change, such that the magnitude of olfactory decline in the older age cohort (70–90 years old at baseline) was larger for the val homozygote carriers than for the met carriers. The older met carriers did not display larger age-related decline in olfactory function compared to the younger group. The BDNF val66met polymorphism did not affect the rate of decline in the younger age cohort (45–65 years). The findings are discussed in the light of the proposed roles of BDNF in neural development and maintenance.
Keywords:
brain-derived neurotrophic factor, val66met, olfaction, odor identification, aging
Citation:
Hedner M, Nilsson L-G, Olofsson JK, Bergman O, Eriksson E, Nyberg L, and Larsson M (2010) Age-related olfactory decline is associated with the BDNF val66met polymorphism: evidence from a population-based study. Front. Ag. Neurosci. 2:24. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2010.00024
Received: 26 February 2010;
Paper pending published: 15 March 2010;
Accepted: 18 May 2010;
Published online: 07 June 2010
Edited by:
Thomas C. Foster, University of Florida, USA
Reviewed by:
Naftali Raz, Wayne State University, USA
Richard Doty, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Sarah Harris, University of Edinburgh, UK
Copyright:
© 2010 Hedner, Nilsson, Olofsson, Bergman, Eriksson, Nyberg and Larsson. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
*Correspondence:
Margareta Hedner, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Frescati Hagväg 14, SE - 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. e-mail: margareta.hedner@psychology.su.se