Terreros, G.; Pérez, M.Á.; Muñoz-LLancao, P.; D’Espessailles, A.; Martínez, E.A.; Dagnino-Subiabre, A. The Neuroprotective Role of Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa, Wild) Supplementation in Hippocampal Morphology and Memory of Adolescent Stressed Rats. Nutrients2024, 16, 381.
Terreros, G.; Pérez, M.Á.; Muñoz-LLancao, P.; D’Espessailles, A.; Martínez, E.A.; Dagnino-Subiabre, A. The Neuroprotective Role of Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa, Wild) Supplementation in Hippocampal Morphology and Memory of Adolescent Stressed Rats. Nutrients 2024, 16, 381.
Terreros, G.; Pérez, M.Á.; Muñoz-LLancao, P.; D’Espessailles, A.; Martínez, E.A.; Dagnino-Subiabre, A. The Neuroprotective Role of Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa, Wild) Supplementation in Hippocampal Morphology and Memory of Adolescent Stressed Rats. Nutrients2024, 16, 381.
Terreros, G.; Pérez, M.Á.; Muñoz-LLancao, P.; D’Espessailles, A.; Martínez, E.A.; Dagnino-Subiabre, A. The Neuroprotective Role of Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa, Wild) Supplementation in Hippocampal Morphology and Memory of Adolescent Stressed Rats. Nutrients 2024, 16, 381.
Abstract
Brain physiology and morphology are vulnerable to chronic stress, affecting cognitive performance and behavior. However, functional compounds found in food may alleviate these alterations. White quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa, Wild) seeds have high content of n-3 fatty acids, including alpha-linolenic acid. This work aimed to evaluate the possible neuroprotective role of a quinoa-based functional food (QFF) in rats. Prepubertal male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed with rat chow or QFF (50% rat chow + 50% dehydrated quinoa seeds) and exposed or not to restraint stress protocol (2 hours/day; 15 days). Four experimental groups were used: Non-stressed (rat chow), Non-stressed + QFF, Stressed (rat chow) and Stressed + QFF. Weight gain, locomotor activity (open field), anxiety (elevated plus maze, light-dark box), spatial memory (Y-maze), and dendritic length in the hippocampus were measured in all animals. QFF intake did not affect anxiety-like behaviors, while the memory of stressed rats fed with QFF improved compared to those fed with rat chow. In addition, QFF intake countered the stress-induced dendritic atrophy in pyramidal neurons located in CA3 area of the hippocampus. The results suggest that a quinoa-supplemented diet could have a protective role on the memory of chronically stressed rats.
Keywords
quinoa, stress, fatty acids, hippocampus, memory
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Neuroscience and Neurology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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