Repercussões do consumo de dieta hiperlipídica durante a pré-concepção e gestação sobre parâmetros de memória da prole de rator wistar

Abstract

Obesity and excessive consumption of high-fat diets during pregnancy represent a growing public health concern, associated with risks for fetal development and offspring health. However, the impacts of maternal intake of such diets from the preconception period onward remain underexplored, particularly regarding potential differences between male and female offspring. The present study aimed to analyze the repercussions of maternal high-fat diet consumption during preconception and gestation on histological parameters, brain fatty-acid profiles, and short- and longterm memory in male and female Wistar rat offspring. Four primiparous rats were fed a high-fat diet during preconception (55 days) and gestation (23 days), while a control diet was provided during lactation. Litters were standardized to eight pups (four males and four females). After weaning, the offspring underwent behavioral testing on postnatal day 85, receiving a control diet until 90 days of age, when they were euthanized. No relevant alterations were observed in short-term memory tests, whereas in long-term memory testing, sex differences emerged in locomotor parameters such as distance traveled and mean velocity, as well as in the number of specific object explorations, with the female group presenting higher values. Analysis of brain fatty-acid profiles did not reveal significant sex differences. Histological evaluation of the hippocampus showed neurons with preserved morphology and features consistent with normality across all groups. The findings suggest that maternal high-fat diet consumption did not induce morphological alterations in the hippocampus but modulated exploratory behavior in the offspring during long-term memory testing, indicating subtle effects on functionality. It can be concluded that maternal high-fat diet intake exerts potentially sexdependent effects, with normality observed in most evaluated parameters except for long-term memory, which showed a relevant outcome in the offspring. These results underscore the importance of further investigations at different developmental stages, including complementary molecular analyses.