Postnatal dietary supplementation with either gangliosides or choline: effects on spatial short-term memory in artificially-reared rats.

This study addressed the hypothesis that dietary supplementation with either gangliosides or choline during the brain growth spurt would enhance short-term spatial memory. Male Long-Evans rats were reared artificially from postnatal days (PD) 5-18 and were fed diets containing either (i) choline chloride 1250 mg/l (CHL), (ii) choline chloride 250 mg/l and GD3 24 mg/l (GNG) or (iii) choline chloride 250 mg/l (STD). A fourth group (SCK) was reared normally. Rats were weaned onto AIN 93G diet and on PD 35 were trained on a cued delayed- matching-to-place version of the Morris water maze. All groups learned to swim to the beacon that indicated the platform position on the first trial; similarly, on the second un-cued trial, the distance swam to reach the platform decreased to the same extent in all groups over the five days of training. The groups also responded in the same way to an increase in delay between the first and second trial from 1 min to 1 h, showing an increase in the distance swam, accompanied by a decrease in the number of direct swims to the platform. Thus, all rats were equally proficient at using spatial short-term memory, regardless of the choline or ganglioside content of the preweaning diet.