Center
for Integrated Research in Science, Shimane University Faculty of
Medicine, Izumo and 
Division
of Anatomy and Developmental Neurobiology, Department of
Neuroscience, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe,
Japan
Summary
1. Twenty 5-week-old male Wistar rats were divided into two groups: one group was fed a fish oil-deficient diet and the other group was fed the same diet supplemented with per orally administered docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) for 12 weeks.
2. Six weeks after the start of the administration of DHA, rats were trained for 6 weeks to acquire a reward at the end of each of four arms of an eight-arm radial maze. On completion of the radial maze task, the Fos expression in the hippocampus was examined immunohistochemically.
3. Chronic DHA administration significantly reduced the number of reference and working memory errors. The number of Fos-positive neurons in the CA1 hippocampus significantly increased in DHA-treated rats compared with control rats, demonstrating a statistically significant negative correlation with the number of reference memory errors.
4. These results suggest that the DHA-induced improvement in spatial cognition is associated with increased Fos expression in the CA1 hippocampus.
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