Cellular neuroscienceDocosahexaenoic acid dietary supplementation enhances the effects of exercise on synaptic plasticity and cognition
Section snippets
Experimental designs and tissue preparation
Sprague–Dawley rats (Charles River Laboratories, Inc., Wilmington, MA, USA) weighing between 200 and 240 g were housed in cages and maintained in environmentally controlled rooms (22–24 °C) with a 12-h light/dark cycle. After acclimatization for 1 week on standard rat chow, one set of rats was exposed to a DHA-enriched diet (1.25% DHA), while another set was exposed to regular diet (RD). The rats were then maintained on the diets with or without voluntary exercise for 1 week. The rats were
Cognitive testing
It has been shown that both DHA dietary supplementation and exercise have beneficial effects on cognitive function. We have embarked in studies to determine a possible synergistic effect of a DHA-enriched diet and exercise on cognition. Rats were exposed to a regular or DHA-enriched diet, with or without exercise for 7 days, followed by a learning test using the Morris water maze for 5 days. The results demonstrated that the DHA-enriched diet-fed rats performed better as evidenced by lower
Discussion
We have found that a short 12-day exposure to a DHA-enriched diet significantly increases learning ability, and these effects are enhanced by the concurrent application of voluntary exercise. The effects of the DHA diet and exercise on cognitive enhancement were paralleled by elevations in BDNF, and the activated forms of the synaptic proteins CREB, synapsin I, and CaMKII, important for hippocampal learning. Levels of the Akt signaling system were also elevated in proportion to BDNF levels
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by NIH award NS50465.
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