Biomedical Research

Objective: The effects of meal frequency and caloric restriction on spatial memory based on hippocampus in rats were examined in our study.

Materials and Methods: As a result of a four-weeks pilot study amount of food and meal times was determined with 9 rats. In the main study, Wistar albino, 12 weeks, male, 24 rats were divided into three groups as; Ad libitum control (AL) (n=8), two meals fed group (TM) (n=8), two meals fed and 20% calorie restriction of group (TM-CR) (n=8). All rats were kept individually in cages. According to the results of a pilot study in main study; 20 g/day; 10 g for the morning and evening meals were given to TM group, 16 g/day; for the morning and evening meals were given feed in the form of 8 grams to TMCR group. At the end of the experiment, the hippocampus-based spatial memory training and testing was performed in the Morris Water Maze (MWM) and the experiment was terminated.

Results: There was no significant difference between groups about learning speed and memory assessment by WMT (p>0.05).

Conclusions: Thus, it was shown that TM and the TM-CR groups have no negative effect in terms of learning and memory. TM and the TM-CR can be presented as a healthy nutritional diet taking into metabolic benefits and no negative impact on learning.

Author(s): Hasan Basri Savas, Fatih Gultekin, Duygu Kumbul Doguc
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