Research from The Ohio State University exposes that a high-fat diet plan before surgical treatment can trigger considerable memory problems in rats, both young and old. This memory concern, associated to an inflammatory action in the brain, can be reduced by taking DHA omega-3 fat supplements. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
A high-fat diet plan integrated with surgical treatment results in long-lasting memory problems due to brain swelling, which can be avoided by < period class ="glossaryLink" aria-describedby ="tt" data-cmtooltip ="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>DHA</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>DHA, short for docosahexaenoic acid, is an omega-3 fatty acid that is needed for healthy brains, eyes, and nervous systems. Humans can synthesize small amounts of DHA from alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and can get it directly from cold-water, fatty fish like salmon or from fish oil supplements. DHA is especially important for infants, who can get it from maternal breast milk or supplemented formula.</div>" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]" tabindex ="0" function ="link" > DHA supplements, according to a research study atTheOhioState(********************************************************************** ).
Eating fatty food in the days leading up to surgical treatment might trigger an increased inflammatory action in the brain that interferes for weeks with memory-related cognitive function in older grownups– and, brand-new research study in animals recommends, even in young people.
The research study, structure upon previous research study from the exact same laboratory at (*************************************************************************** )Ohio StateUniversity, likewise revealed that taking a DHA omega-3 fatty < period class ="glossaryLink" aria-describedby ="tt" data-cmtooltip ="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>acid</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Any substance that when dissolved in water, gives a pH less than 7.0, or donates a hydrogen ion.</div>" data-gt-translate-attributes ="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]" tabindex ="0" function =(****************************************************** )> acid supplement for a month before the unhealthy consuming and surgery avoided the impacts on memory connected to both the high-fat diet plan and the surgical treatment in aged and young person rats.
(******************* )Inflammation andMemoryImpairment
Three days on a high-fat diet plan alone was destructive to a particular kind of fear-related memory in aged rats for as long as 2 weeks later on– the exact same kind of problems seen in more youthful rats that consumed fatty food and had a surgery.The group has actually traced the brain swelling behind these impacts to a protein that triggers the immune action.
“These data suggest that these multiple insults have a compounding effect,” stated senior author Ruth Barrientos, a detective in Ohio State’s Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research and associate teacher of psychiatry and behavioral health and neuroscience in the College of Medicine.
“We’ve shown that an unhealthy diet, even in the short term, especially when it’s consumed so close to a surgery, which in and of itself will cause an inflammatory response, can have damaging results,” Barrientos stated. “The high-fat diet alone might increase inflammation in the brain just a little bit, but then you have surgery that does the same thing, and when put together in a short amount of time you get a synergistic response that can set things in motion toward a longer-term memory issue.”
The research study was released just recently in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity
Barrientos’ laboratory research studies how daily life occasions may activate swelling in the aging brain as the nerve system reacts to signals from the body immune system responding to a risk. Decades of research study has actually recommended that with aging comes long-lasting “priming” of the brain’s inflammatory profile and a loss of brain-cell reserve to recover.
Researchers fed young person and aged rats a diet plan high in hydrogenated fat for 3 days before a treatment looking like exploratory stomach surgical treatment– an occasion currently understood to trigger about a week of cognitive problems in an older brain. Control rats consumed routine food and were anesthetized, however had no surgical treatment. (Barrientos’ laboratory has actually figured out anesthesia alone does not trigger memory issues in rats.)
Research Findings and Future Directions
In this research study, as in previous research study on aged rats treated with morphine after surgical treatment, the group revealed that a body immune system receptor called TLR4 was the offender behind the brain swelling and associated memory issues created by both surgical treatment and the high-fat diet plan, stated very first author Stephanie Muscat, assistant scientific teacher of neuroscience at Ohio State.
“Blocking the TLR4 signaling pathway prior to the diet and surgery completely prevented that neuroimmune response and memory impairments, which confirmed this specific mechanism,” Muscat stated. “And as we had found before in another model of an unhealthy diet, we showed that DHA supplementation did mitigate those inflammatory effects and prevent memory deficits after surgery.”
There were some unexpected memory findings in the brand-new work. Different behavioral jobs are utilized to evaluate 2 kinds of memory: contextual memory based in the hippocampus and cued-fear memory based in the amygdala. In contextual memory tests, rats with regular memory freeze when they return to a space in which they had an undesirable experience. Cued- worry memory appears when rats freeze in a brand-new environment when they hear a sound linked to that previous disappointment.
For aged rats in this research study, as anticipated, the mix of a high-fat diet plan and surgical treatment caused issues with both contextual and cued-fear memory that continued for a minimum of 2 weeks– a longer-lasting impact than the scientists had actually seen before.
The high-fat diet plan alone likewise hindered the aging rats’ cued-fear memory. And in young person rats, the mix of the high-fat diet plan and surgical treatment caused just cued-fear memory deficits, however no issues with memory governed by the hippocampus.
“What this is telling us in aged animals, along with the fact we’re seeing this same impairment in young animals after the high-fat diet and surgery, is that cued-fear memory is uniquely vulnerable to the effects of diet. And we don’t know why,” Barrientos stated. “One of the things we’re hoping to understand in the future is the vulnerability of the amygdala to these unhealthy diet challenges.”
With increasing proof recommending that fatty and extremely processed foods can activate inflammation-related memory issues in brains of any ages, the constant findings that DHA– one of 2 omega-3 fats in fish and other seafood and readily available in supplement type– has a protective impact are engaging, Barrientos stated.
“DHA was really effective at preventing these changes,” she stated. “And that’s amazing – it really suggests that this could be a potential pretreatment, especially if people know they’re going to have surgery and their diet is unhealthy.”
Reference: “Post-operative cognitive dysfunction is exacerbated by high-fat diet via TLR4 and prevented by dietary DHA supplementation” by Stephanie M. Muscat, Michael J. Butler, Menaz N. Bettes, James W. DeMarsh, Emmanuel A. Scaria, Nicholas P. Deems and Ruth M. Barrientos, 23 December 2023, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity
DOI: 10.1016/ j.bbi.202312028
Co- authors consisted of Michael Butler, Menaz Bettes, James DeMarsh, Emmanuel Scaria and Nicholas Deems, all of Ohio State.
This work was supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
