Researchers at the University of Southern California reported in Nature Communications that a signal traveling from the gut to the brain through the vagus nerve helps rats remember where they recently ate, and that a high-fat, high-sugar diet consumed early in life weakens that signal. The study, conducted entirely in male rats, found that animals fed a cafeteria-style junk food diet for 30 days showed memory deficits weeks after returning to a standard diet, according to the paper.
The authors said whether the same mechanism occurs in humans remains unknown. The study builds on earlier work at the University of Southern California linking adolescent junk food diets to long-term memory impairment in adulthood [1]. Prior population research has also associated Western-style dietary patterns with smaller hippocampal volumes and cognitive decline in older adults [2].
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