A long-term mild high-fat diet facilitates rabbit discrimination learning and alters glycerophospholipid metabolism

Previous reports have shown an association between a Western high-fat diet (HFD) and poor cognitive performance. So far, there are no reports of whether a mild HFD can affect rabbit learning and hippocampal metabolic profile. This study was designed to explore whether feeding a mild HFD (5 % lard and 5 % soy oil) for 20 weeks affected eyeblink discrimination and discrimination reversal learning and hippocampal metabolic profiles. After 20 weeks on the HFD or a normal control diet, all rabbits received one day of adaptation, 20 daily sessions of two-tone discrimination (1-kHz CS + followed by air puff and 8-kHz CS- not followed by air puff), a rest day, and then 40 daily sessions of discrimination reversal (8-kHz CS + and 1-kHz CS-). Compared to rabbits fed a regular chow diet, rabbits fed a mild HFD showed better discrimination evidenced by higher responding to CS+, lower responding to CS-, and a larger discrimination index (CS+ - CS-). Widely targeted metabolomics analysis identified 1805 metabolites in the hippocampus, and significant HFD-induced changes in 162 and 165 differential metabolites in males and females, respectively. These included glycerophospholipids and fatty acyls. KEGG enrichment analysis showed glycerophospholipid metabolism (ko00564) was significantly enriched in the HFD group notably lysophosphatidylethanolamine and lysophosphatidylcholine. In summary, our data show a long-term mild HFD facilitated discrimination learning in rabbits without inducing a metabolic syndrome, and altered the hippocampal metabolic profile, which may affect neuronal cell membrane lipids and behavioral performance.