Seeing death makes fruit flies age faster

Sensory perception plays a key role in all living beings' health and life spans.

All living organisms age. People have long sought ways to slow, halt, or reverse this process, which is commonly associated with declining mental and physical health. One area researchers are probing is the role that sensory perception — such as sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch — plays on health and life span.

While you may typically think of your senses as what you use to gather information about your surroundings, recent work has demonstrated that environmental cues themselves can affect physiology and aging. Your body regulates itself to match the conditions it finds itself in. The nervous system is poised as a central player in mediating the effects of sensory perception. It stores and integrates incoming information from the environment and interprets and disseminates information across different tissues. FULL STORY from Inverse