Thompson, Lucien T. (Tres)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10735.1/4928

"Tres" Thompson is an Associate Professor of Cognition and Neuroscience and a leading researcher in the area of the neurobiology of aging and memory. He is also the Principle Investigator of the Aging & Memory Research Laboratory. His research interests include:

  • Cellular Mechanisms of Memory Consolidation
  • Maintenance and Extinction
  • Memory Disruption by Aging, Experience, or Metabolic Insult
  • Memory Restoration by Nootropics

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    A High-Fat Diet Causes Impairment in Hippocampal Memory and Sex-Dependent Alterations in Peripheral Metabolism
    (Hindawi Publishing Corporation) Underwood, Erica L.; Thompson, Lucien T.; 0000-0001-8878-0221 (Thompson, LT)
    While high-fat diets are associated with rising incidence of obesity/type-2 diabetes and can induce metabolic and cognitive deficits, sex-dependent comparisons are rarely systematically made. Effects of exclusive consumption of a high-fat diet (HFD) on systemic metabolism and on behavioral measures of hippocampal-dependent memory were compared in young male and female LE rats. Littermates were fed from weaning either a HFD or a control diet (CD) for 12 wk prior to testing. Sex-different effects of the HFD were observed in classic metabolic signs associated with type-2 diabetes. Males fed the HFD became obese, and had elevated fasted blood glucose levels, elevated corticosterone, and impaired glucose-tolerance, while females on the HFD exhibited only elevated corticosterone. Regardless of peripheral metabolism alteration, rats of both sexes fed the HFD were equally impaired in a spatial object recognition memory task associated with impaired hippocampal function. While the metabolic changes reported here have been characterized previously in males, the set of diet-induced effects observed here in females are novel. Impaired memory can have significant cognitive consequences, over the short-term and over the lifespan. A significant need exists for comparative research into sex-dependent differences underlying obesity and metabolic syndromes relating systemic, cognitive, and neural plasticity mechanisms.

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