Misaligned feeding impairs memories

Abstract

Robust sleep/wake rhythms are important for health and cognitive function. Unfortunately, many people are living in an environment where their circadian system is challenged by inappropriate meal- or work-times. Here we scheduled food access to the sleep time and examined the impact on learning and memory in mice. Under these conditions, we demonstrate that the molecular clock in the master pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), is unaltered while the molecular clock in the hippocampus is synchronized by the timing of food availability. This chronic circadian misalignment causes reduced hippocampal long term potentiation and total CREB expression. Importantly this mis-timed feeding resulted in dramatic deficits in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory. Our findings suggest that the timing of meals have far-reaching effects on hippocampal physiology and learned behaviour.

Article and author information

Author details

Dawn Hsiao-Wei Loh

Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

For correspondence
hloh@ucla.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Shekib A Jami

Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology Ph.D. Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Richard E Flores

Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Danny Truong

Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Cristina A Ghiani

Department of Pathology and Psychiatry, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Thomas J O'Dell

Department of Physiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Chris S Colwell

Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols of the University of California Los Angeles (Protocol 1998-183).

Reviewing Editor

Joseph S Takahashi, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States

Publication history

Received: June 16, 2015
Accepted: November 19, 2015
Accepted Manuscript published: December 10, 2015 (version 1)
Version of Record published: December 23, 2015 (version 2)

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.