Daily access to sucrose impairs aspects of spatial memory tasks reliant on pattern separation and neural proliferation in rats.
High sugar diets reduce hippocampal neurogenesis, which is required for minimizing interference between memories, a process that involves "pattern separation." We provided rats with 2 h daily access to a sucrose solution for 28 d and assessed their performance on a spatial memory task. Sucrose consuming rats discriminated between objects in novel and familiar locations when there was a large spatial separation between the objects, but not when the separation was smaller. Neuroproliferation markers in the dentate gyrus of the sucrose-consuming rats were reduced relative to controls. Thus, sucrose consumption impaired aspects of spatial memory and reduced hippocampal neuroproliferation.
School of Psychology, UNSW Australia, UNSW Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia amy.reichelt@rmit.edu.au.
Amy C
AC
Reichelt
School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Australia, UNSW Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.
Margaret J
MJ
Morris
School of Psychology, UNSW Australia, UNSW Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.
Reginald Frederick
RF
Westbrook
D000818:Animals; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D018891:Dentate Gyrus / Q000502:physiology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D055495:Neurogenesis; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D065852:Spatial Memory; D013395:Sucrose / Q000008:administration & dosage*
D013395:Sucrose