High-fat diet consumption for a short period sensitizes SNC to mild immune challenge and impaired contextual fear memory.

HERRERA GUADALUPE.; DRA. LASAGA MERCEDES.; DRA. SCIMONELLI TERESA.

Villa Carlos Paz

Congreso; XXXIV Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2019

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Hippocampal neuroinflammation normally increases with age, but risk of neuroinflammation, cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative diseases is exacerbated by chronic consumption of high fat diets (HFD) in young and adults. Also, consumption of HFD for a short time period has been shown to sensitize the inflammatory response to a subsequent immune challenge. Moreover, neuroinflammation and astrocytes activation and proliferation represent a common link between neurodegenerative diseases and metabolic related disorders. α-MSH is a potent anti-inflammatory peptide and previous results of our group indicated that α-MSH could reverse the effect of the neuroinflammation induce by IL-1β on memory consolidation and reconsolidation.We explored whether 5 days consumption of HFD (60% of cal from fat) can trigger a neuroinflammatory response in male rats that received a mild immune challenge (LPS), leading to cognitive deficits. Ingestion of a HFD for 5 days did not impair fear contextual memory. However, the intraperitoneal injection of LPS impaired memory consolidation in HFD rats. The treatment with α-MSH in dorsal hippocampus reversed the effect of HFD+LPS administration in contextual fear memory. We are also studying astrocytes proliferation and activation.In summary, our present results indicate that HFD consumption for a short period sensitizes SNC to mild immune challenge and produces an impairment in the contextual fear memory that could be related to changes in glial cells.