title: Rats Fed a Diet Rich in Fats and Sugars Are Impaired in the Use of Spatial Geometry.
abstract: A diet rich in fats and sugars is associated with cognitive deficits in people, and rodent models have shown that such a diet produces deficits on tasks assessing spatial learning and memory. Spatial navigation is guided by two distinct types of information: geometrical, such as distance and direction, and featural, such as luminance and pattern. To clarify the nature of diet-induced spatial impairments, we provided rats with standard chow supplemented with sugar water and a range of energy-rich foods eaten by people, and then we assessed their place- and object-recognition memory. Rats exposed to this diet performed comparably with control rats fed only chow on object recognition but worse on place recognition. This impairment on the place-recognition task was present after only a few days on the diet and persisted across tests. Critically, this spatial impairment was specific to the processing of distance and direction.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of New South Wales.
authors.forename: Dominic M D
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of New South Wales f.westbrook@unsw.edu.au.
authors.forename: R Frederick
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Westbrook
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004041:Dietary Fats / Q000009:adverse effects*; D019422:Dietary Sucrose / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D065852:Spatial Memory
chemical_list: D004041:Dietary Fats; D019422:Dietary Sucrose
keywords: diet; geometric processing; object-recognition memory; spatial memory