Abstract
The dietary pattern in industrialized countries has changed substantially over the past century due to technological advances in agriculture, food processing, storage, marketing, and distribution practices. The availability of highly palatable, calorically dense foods that are shelf-stable has facilitated a food environment where overconsumption of foods that have a high percentage of calories derived from fat (particularly saturated fat) and sugar is extremely common in modern Westernized societies. In addition to being a predictor of obesity and metabolic dysfunction, consumption of a Western diet (WD) is related to poorer cognitive performance across the lifespan. In particular, WD consumption during critical early life stages of development has negative consequences on various cognitive abilities later in adulthood. This review highlights rodent model research identifying dietary, metabolic, and neurobiological mechanisms linking consumption of a WD during early life periods of development (gestation, lactation, juvenile and adolescence) with behavioral impairments in multiple cognitive domains, including anxiety-like behavior, learning and memory function, reward-motivated behavior, and social behavior. The literature supports a model in which early life WD consumption leads to long-lasting neurocognitive impairments that are largely dissociable from WD effects on obesity and metabolic dysfunction.
Highlights
Children in the United States are exposed to a dietary environment where there is an overabundance of highly palatable foods that are affordable and readily accessible
We present behavioral and neurobiological evidence from preclinical rodent models highlighting that consumption of a Western Diet (WD) during critical periods of development can lead to neurocognitive dysfunction later in adulthood
We highlight the detrimental effects of WDs high in fat, sugar, or a combination of the two on the following cognitive domains: anxiety-like behavior, learning and memory function, reward-motivated behavior, and social behavior (Supplementary Table 1)
Summary
Children in the United States are exposed to a dietary environment where there is an overabundance of highly palatable foods that are affordable and readily accessible. Using a similar experimental design to Noble et al, Hsu et al saw no differences in anxiety like behavior in rats fed either 11% sucrose solution or 11% HFCS solution when testing occurred with no delay following sugar consumption (Hsu et al, 2015) These studies suggest that withdrawal from WD may in part explain the increased anxiety-like behavior seen in rodents, this effect may depend on the type of WD (sugar, high-fat, or combination of the two) and the anxiety-like phenotype may be alleviated given significant time consuming a healthy control diet.
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