Premium
N‐3 Fatty Acid Deficient Diet Affects Mice Spatial Learning in the Barnes Circular Maze.
Author(s) -
Fedorova Irina M,
Hussein Nahed,
Di Martino Carmine,
Moriguchi Toru,
Majchrzak Sharon,
Salem Norman
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.21.5.a321-a
Subject(s) - elevated plus maze , fatty acid , morris water navigation task , barnes maze , endocrinology , t maze , medicine , zoology , spatial learning , chemistry , psychology , anxiety , developmental psychology , hippocampus , biochemistry , biology , psychiatry
Deficiency in n‐3 fatty acids has been accomplished through the use of an artificial rearing method in which ICR mice pups were hand fed a deficient diet starting from the second day of life. There was a 51% loss of total brain DHA in n‐3 fatty acid deficient in comparison to n‐3 fatty acid adequate mice. The n‐3 fatty acid deficient mice were more vulnerable to stress than n‐3 adequate and dam‐reared mice as evaluated in the elevated plus maze. There was no change in plus maze performance of deficient mice under low stress, and elevated anxiety in terms of decreased time spent on open arms and decreased head dips made from the open arms under high stress conditions. The high stress condition included a bright light overhead and a loud noise during the trial. There was a deficit in spatial learning of n‐3 fatty acid deficient mice using the reference‐memory version of the Barnes circular maze. No difference in performance between all dietary groups in the cued and working memory version of the Barnes maze was observed. The results of the working memory test did not depend on the stress level under which the experiment was conducted.