Intermittent dietary fish oil supplementation prevents high fat diet‐induced enhanced sensitivity to the behavioral effects of quinpirole

Abstract

Eating a high fat diet can lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and dopamine system dysfunction. For example, rats eating high fat laboratory chow are more sensitive than rats eating standard chow to the behavioral effects of dopaminergic drugs. Specifically, drugs that act on dopamine systems (e.g., quinpirole and cocaine) produce unconditioned behavioral effects (e.g., yawning and locomotion) that are enhanced among rats eating high fat chow. Daily dietary supplementation with fish oil prevents this high fat diet‐induced effect; however, doctors recommend that patients take fish oil only 2–3 times a week for beneficial health effects. To test the hypothesis that intermittent (e.g., 2/7 days per week) dietary supplementation with fish oil prevents high fat diet‐induced effects (e.g., enhanced sensitivity to the behavioral effects of dopaminergic drugs) rats eating standard chow (17% kcal from fat), high fat chow (60% kcal from fat), or standard or high fat chow with 20% (w/w) intermittent (e.g., 2/7 days per week) dietary fish oil supplementation were tested once weekly with quinpirole (0.0032–0.32 mg/kg, i.p.) or cocaine (1–17.8 mg/kg, i.p.) using cumulative dosing procedures. Sensitivity to the behavioral effects of quinpirole was enhanced among rats eating high fat chow as compared to rats eating standard chow, and rats eating high fat chow with intermittent dietary fish oil supplementation were protected against this enhanced sensitivity. Intermittent access to fish oil significantly decreased cocaine‐induced locomotion in some groups, without impacting general locomotor activity (e.g., motor activity following saline injections). Future experiments will focus on understanding the mechanism(s) by which fish oil produces beneficial effects, by examining the specific omega‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids found in fish oil.Support or Funding InformationNina Beltran is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under the linked award number R25GM069621.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.