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Rats with low levels of brain docosahexaenoic acid show impaired performance in olfactory‐based and spatial learning tasks
Author(s) -
Greiner Rebecca Sheaff,
Moriguchi Toru,
Hutton Ana,
Slotnick Burton M.,
Salem Norman
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
lipids
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.601
H-Index - 120
eISSN - 1558-9307
pISSN - 0024-4201
DOI - 10.1007/bf02562305
Subject(s) - morris water navigation task , docosahexaenoic acid , olfactory bulb , central nervous system , neurochemistry , lipidology , clinical chemistry , medicine , endocrinology , odor , biology , physiology , polyunsaturated fatty acid , fatty acid , neuroscience , neurology , biochemistry , hippocampus
Studies were carried out to determine if decreased levels of central nervous system docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a result of consuming an n‐3‐deficient diet, had an effect on learning‐ and memory‐related behaviors in adult male rats. Females were reared on an n‐3‐deficient or n‐3‐adequate diet beginning at 21 d of life. Their male pups, the F2 generation, were weaned to the diet of the dam and tested at 9–12 wk of age. An olfactory‐based discrimination and Morris water maze task were used to assess performance. Whole brain was collected after the behavioral experiments and central nervous system fatty acid content was analyzed in olfactory bulb total lipid extracts. F2 generation male rats consuming the n‐3‐deficient diet had an 82% decrease in DHA compared to rats consuming the n‐3‐adequate diet. The n‐3‐deficient animals made significantly more total errors in a 7‐problem, 2‐odor discrimination task compared to the n‐3‐adequate group. Furthermore, the escape latency in the Morris water maze task was significantly longer for the n‐3‐deficient rats compared to the n‐3‐adequate rats. These results indicate that rats with decreased DHA levels in the central nervous system perform poorer in these tasks compared to rats with higher DHA levels and suggest the presence of learning deficits in these animals.