Nutritional neuroscience
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Nutritional neuroscience · Feb 2015
The impact of different fructose loads on insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and PSA-NCAM-mediated plasticity in the hippocampus of fructose-fed male rats.
High fructose diet has been shown to have damaging effects on the hippocampus, a brain region critical for learning and memory. Fructose-induced hippocampal dysfunction may arise from insulin resistance and inflammation, and from concomitant changes in plasticity-related presynaptic proteins. We hypothesized that long-term access to fructose (10% and 60% solutions over a period of 9 weeks) affects insulin sensitivity, hippocampal inflammation, and synaptic plasticity in male Wistar rats. ⋯ The results showed that long-term consumption of 10% fructose solution induces hippocampal insulin resistance and inflammation, with no concomitant plasticity changes. Interestingly, rats fed with higher concentrations of fructose displayed impaired plastic response of the hippocampus, coinciding with augmented glucocorticoid signalling, which may provide a basis for cognitive deficits associated with metabolic syndrome.