The same laboratory discovered in an earlier research study in aging rats that a diet plan of extremely processed ingredients led to a strong inflammatory response in the brain that was accompanied by behavioral signs of memory loss– and that DHA supplements avoided those problems.
” The cool aspect of this paper is that for the very first time, were really starting to tease these things apart by cell type,” stated senior author Ruth Barrientos, a detective in Ohio States Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research and associate teacher of psychiatry and behavioral health and neuroscience in the College of Medicine.
” Our laboratory and others have actually often looked at the whole tissue of the hippocampus to observe the brains memory-related response to a high-fat diet plan. Weve been curious about which cell types are more or less affected by these saturated fatty acids, and this is our very first venture into identifying that.”
The research study was released recently in the journal Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.
For this work, the scientists focused on microglia, cells in the brain that promote inflammation, and hippocampal neurons, which are necessary for discovering and memory. They utilized commemorated cells– copies of cells taken from animal tissue that are modified to continuously divide and respond only to lab-based stimulation, suggesting their behavior might not precisely match that of primary cells of the same type.
Scientist exposed these model microglia and neurons to palmitic acid, the most plentiful saturated fatty acid in high-fat foods like lard, reducing, meat, and dairy products, to observe how it affected gene activation in the cells along with working of mitochondria, structures inside cells that have a main metabolic role of creating energy.
Outcomes revealed that palmitic acid triggered gene expression modifications connected to a boost in swelling in both microglia and neurons, though microglia had a broader series of impacted inflammatory genes. Pre-treatment of these cells with a dose of DHA, one of 2 omega-3 fats in fish and other seafood and available in supplement kind, had a strong protective impact against the increased swelling in both cell types.
” Previous work has actually revealed that DHA is protective in the brain which palmitic acid has actually been damaging to brain cells, but this is the very first time weve looked at how DHA can straight secure versus the impacts of palmitic acid in those microglia, and we see that there is a strong protective effect,” stated Michael Butler, first author of the research study and a research study scientist in Barrientos laboratory.
When it pertained to the mitochondria, nevertheless, DHA did not prevent the loss of function that followed direct exposure to palmitic acid.
” The protective results of DHA might, in this context, be restricted to effects on gene expression associated to the pro-inflammatory response rather than the metabolic deficits that the saturated fat likewise caused,” Butler stated.
In another set of experiments, the scientists took a look at how a diet high in saturated fat influenced signaling in the brains of aged mice by observing another microglial function called synaptic pruning. Microglia keep an eye on signal transmission amongst neurons and nibble away excess synaptic spines, the connection websites between axons and dendrites, to keep interaction at an ideal level.
Microglia were exposed to mouse brain tissue containing both pre- and post-synaptic product from animals that had been fed either a high-fat diet plan or routine chow for 3 days.
The microglia ate the synapses from aged mice fed a high-fat diet at a faster rate than they consumed synapses from mice fed a routine diet plan– recommending the high-fat diet plan is doing something to those synapses that provides the microglia a reason to eat them at a greater rate, Butler stated.
” When we discuss the pruning, or refinement, that requires to take place, its like Goldilocks: It requires to be ideal– not excessive and not too little,” Barrientos stated. “With these microglia consuming away excessive too soon, it exceeds the capability for these spines to grow back and create new connections, so memories do not solidify or become stable.”
From here, the researchers plan to expand on findings associated with synaptic pruning and mitochondria function, and to see how palmitic acid and DHA results play out in main brain cells from aged versus young animals.
Referral: “Dietary fatty acids differentially impact phagocytosis, inflammatory gene expression, and mitochondrial respiration in microglial and neuronal cell designs” by Michael J. Butler, Sabrina E. Mackey-Alfonso, Nashali Massa, Kedryn K. Baskin and Ruth M. Barrientos, 10 August 2023, Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.DOI: 10.3389/ fncel.2023.1227241.
This work was supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Additional co-authors, all from Ohio State, were Sabrina Mackey-Alfonso, Nashali Massa and Kedryn Baskin.
A brand-new study suggests that a high-fat diet plan might impair memory by causing inflammatory results and issues in cell-signaling management in the brain cells, specifically as individuals age, however the omega-3 fatty acid DHA may assist alleviate these results. The research study, concentrating on microglia and hippocampal nerve cells, discovered that palmitic acid increased swelling, while DHA safeguarded against this effect but not against the loss of mitochondrial function caused by palmitic acid direct exposure.
New research study exposes DHA shields brain cells from fat-related inflammation.
New research study suggests a number of systems through which high-fat foods may affect brain cells, possibly clarifying the association between a high-fat diet plan and memory decrease, particularly in aging.
A research study from The Ohio State University carried out in cell cultures suggests that the omega-3 fatty acid DHA might shield the brain from the detrimental effects of an unhealthy diet plan by reducing fat-triggered inflammation at the cellular level.
Different experiments using brain tissue from aging mice revealed a high-fat diet may lead specific brain cells to overdo cell-signaling management in a way that disrupts the creation of new memories.
