Abstract
Recent epidemiological studies demonstrate that obesity is related to high incidence of cognitive impairment. In the present study, cognitive behaviors in diet‐induced obese (DIO) mice fed 60% high‐fat diet for 16 weeks were compared with those in mice fed control diet (CD) in fear‐conditioning tests including both contextual and cued elements which preferentially depend on the amygdala and hippocampus, respectively, and moreover, the contents of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophin‐3 (NT‐3) in the brain areas were examined in both CD and DIO mice. In fear‐conditioning tests, the freezing percentage of both contextual fear and cued fear responses in DIO mice were significantly lower than in CD mice. The contents of BDNF in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus of DIO mice were significantly lower than those of CD mice. Its receptor, full‐length TrkB in the amygdala of DIO mice significantly decreased compared with that of CD mice, but not in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus and hypothalamus. On the other hand, the contents of NT‐3 in the hippocampus, amygdala and hypothalamus of DIO mice were significantly higher than those of CD mice. Its receptor, full‐length TrkC was not significantly different between CD and DIO mice. The present study demonstrated that DIO mice show impairment of both amygdala‐dependent contextual and hippocampus‐dependent cued responses in the fear‐conditioning tests, and imbalance in the interaction between the BDNF and NT‐3 systems in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus and amygdala related to cognition and fear.
© 2012 The Authors. Journal of Neuroendocrinology © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
| Authors: |
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Yamada‐Goto, Nobuko; Katsuura, Goro; Ochi, Yukari; Ebihara, Ken; Kusakabe, Toru; Hosoda, Kiminori; Nakao, Kazuwa |
| Journal: |
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Journal of Neuroendocrinology
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| Year: |
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2012 |
| Pages: |
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no |
| DOI: |
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10.1111/j.1365-2826.2012.02327.x |
| Publication date: |
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09-04-2012 |