Abstract
Dietary fat plays an important role in higher brain functions. We aimed to assess the short and long term intake of three different types of dietary fat (soybean oil, lard, and fish oil) on anxiety-like and depression-like behavior in mice. For the short term intake assessment, a behavioral test battery for anxiety and depression was carried out for a 3-day feeding period. For the long term intake assessment, a behavioral test battery began after the 4-week feeding period. During the short term intake, the time spent in the open arms of the elevated plus-maze was the longest in the fish oil fed group, followed by the soybean oil and lard-fed groups. The elevated plus-maze is a common animal model to assess anxiety, in which an increased time spent in the open arms indicates an anxiolytic effect. The difference between the fish oil-fed group and lard-fed group was statistically significant (p < 0.01), but there was no significant difference between the soybean oil-fed group and the other two groups. Similar results were observed after a 4-week feeding period. On the other hand, there was no significant difference among the three groups in behavior tests to evaluate depression. Thus, the dietary fat types appeared to influence anxiety but not depression in mice, both in short term (3 days) and long term (4 weeks) feeding.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-165) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
There are many kinds of fatty acids that are grouped into three main classes: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA)
Fish oil contained 20.2% eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and 8.1% docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which were not detected in soybean oil or lard
Because of the high EPA and DHA concentration, the n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio was much lower in fish oil compared with soybean oil and lard
Summary
There are many kinds of fatty acids that are grouped into three main classes: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). In the phospholipids of animal cell membranes, the n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio is changed by food consumption. This change influences the cell membrane’s fluidity in the central nervous system (Hashimoto et al 2001), and shifts of the fatty acid composition in cell membranes alter the activity of receptors and proteins (Bourre et al 1989; Foot et al 1983; Taffet et al 1993). It is suggested that these changes may affect the higher brain functions. It was revealed that some neurotransmitters, such as endocannabinoids, are synthesized from fatty acids (Devane et al 1992), suggesting that fatty acid metabolites derived from dietary fat can affect the central nervous system
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