A mid-life vitamin A supplementation prevents age-related spatial memory deficits and hippocampal neurogenesis alterations through CRABP-I.
PLoS ONE. 2013-08-19; 8(8): e72101
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072101
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1. PLoS One. 2013 Aug 19;8(8):e72101. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072101. eCollection
2013.
A mid-life vitamin A supplementation prevents age-related spatial memory deficits
and hippocampal neurogenesis alterations through CRABP-I.
Touyarot K(1), Bonhomme D, Roux P, Alfos S, Lafenêtre P, Richard E, Higueret P,
Pallet V.
Author information:
(1)Univ. Bordeaux, Nutrition et Neurobiologie Intégrée, UMR 1286, Bordeaux,
France ; INRA, Nutrition et Neurobiologie Intégrée, UMR 1286, Bordeaux, France.
Age-related memory decline including spatial reference memory is considered to
begin at middle-age and coincides with reduced adult hippocampal neurogenesis.
Moreover, a dysfunction of vitamin A hippocampal signalling pathway has been
involved in the appearance of age-related memory deficits but also in adult
hippocampal neurogenesis alterations. The present study aims at testing the
hypothesis that a mid-life vitamin A supplementation would be a successful
strategy to prevent age-related memory deficits. Thus, middle-aged Wistar rats
were submitted to a vitamin A enriched diet and were tested 4 months later in a
spatial memory task. In order to better understand the potential mechanisms
mediating the effects of vitamin A supplementation on hippocampal functions, we
studied different aspects of hippocampal adult neurogenesis and evaluated
hippocampal CRABP-I expression, known to modulate differentiation processes.
Here, we show that vitamin A supplementation from middle-age enhances spatial
memory and improves the dendritic arborisation of newborn immature neurons
probably resulting in a better survival and neuronal differentiation in aged
rats. Moreover, our results suggest that hippocampal CRABP-I expression which
controls the intracellular availability of retinoic acid (RA), may be an
important regulator of neuronal differentiation processes in the aged
hippocampus. Thus, vitamin A supplementation from middle-age could be a good
strategy to maintain hippocampal plasticity and functions.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072101
PMCID: PMC3747058
PMID: 23977218 [Indexed for MEDLINE]