The Y-maze can be used to assess short term memory in mice. Spontaneous alternation, a measure of spatial working memory, can be assessed by allowing mice to explore all three arms of the maze and is driven by an innate curiosity of rodents to explore previously unvisited areas.
In this study mice were tested for a working memory by using 2 arms of a Y-shaped maze. Given a chance, the mice will naturally explore new environments exposed. An alternative might be that they would remember which arms of the maze already visited.
Each mouse was started out of the maze in the center of the maze and the third arm was blocked. One group had been given a high fat diet; the other group, a heatlhy diet, i.e. not a high fat diet.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) (.gov.)
The results of the maze study resulted in the following:
Mice eating a healthy diet behaved as expected. They chose to explore a new maze previously blocked off from the mice. But mice eating a high fat diet did not prefer any one arm. They seemed to show they could not remember which parts of the maze they had already seen.
Human studies surveyed adults and students and their processed food consumption, especially highly processed foods. Some foods like processed lunch meats have been found to increase inflammation in the body, Some studies surveyed students and the results are indicating that “junk” food fuels the inflammation in the brain. Other studies have found people with depression had 30% more brain inflammation than people who were not depressed. Stay tuned – the research is just beginning.Could diet or other lifestyle factors make a difference in outcomes?
FOOD, FACTS and FADS 