Ketogenic diet does not impair spatial ability controlled by the hippocampus in male rats.
A ketogenic diet was recently shown to reduce glutamate accumulation in synaptic vesicles, decreasing glutamate transmission. We questioned whether a ketogenic diet affects hippocampal function, as glutamate transmission is critically involved in visuospatial ability. In the present study, male Wistar rats were maintained on a ketogenic diet containing 10% protein and 90% fat with complements for 3 weeks to change their energy expenditure from glucose-dependent to fat-dependent. Control rats were fed a diet containing 10% protein, 10% fat, and 80% carbohydrates. The fat-dependent energy expenditure induced by the ketogenic diet led to decreased body weight and increased blood ketone production, though the rats in the two groups consumed the same number of calories. The ketogenic diet did not alter food preferences for the control or high-fat diet containing 10% protein, 45% fat, and 45% carbohydrates. Anxiety in the open field was not altered by ingestion the ketogenic diet. However, rats fed the ketogenic diet performed better in the Y-maze test than rats fed the control diet. No difference was observed between the two groups in the Morris water maze test. Finally, Western blot revealed that the hippocampal expression of alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid-type glutamate receptor subunit 1 (GluR1) was significantly increased in mice fed a ketogenic diet. These results suggest that hippocampal function is not impaired by a ketogenic diet and we speculate that the fat-dependent energy expenditure does not impair visuospatial ability.
['Fukushima|Atsushi|A|', 'Ogura|Yuji|Y|', 'Furuta|Miyako|M|', 'Kakehashi|Chiaki|C|', 'Funabashi|Toshiya|T|', 'Akema|Tatsuo|T|']
D000821:Animal Feed D000818:Animals D001007:Anxiety D001786:Blood Glucose D015153:Blotting, Western D001835:Body Weight D020148:Butyric Acid D002755:Choice Behavior D055423:Diet, Ketogenic D005247:Feeding Behavior D006624:Hippocampus D008297:Male D018782:Maze Learning D051381:Rats D017208:Rats, Wistar D018091:Receptors, AMPA D065854:Spatial Navigation D055697:Taste Perception
Ketogenic diet Hippocampus Ketone Y-maze AMPA receptors