Figure 2.

Intermittent fasting (IF) mitigates chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH) induced cognitive deficits. (A and B) Barnes maze testing was conducted on AL and IF mice subjected to CCH. Learning ability was evaluated by measuring the latency to enter the target hole during the acquisition phase; AL-CCH mice exhibited significantly longer latencies compared to AL-sham controls on days 3 and 4 (A). No significant differences were observed between IF-CCH and IF-sham groups (A). Spatial memory retrieval was assessed on Day 15 using a reprobe test. AL-CCH mice demonstrated increased latencies (B) and reduced time spent in the target quadrant relative to AL-sham mice (B), indicative of memory impairment. In contrast, IF-CCH mice showed significantly reduced latencies (B) and increased time spent in the target quadrant compared to AL-CCH mice (B), reflecting improved spatial memory retention. Data represented as mean ± S.E.M. n = 13-18 mice per experimental group. (C-D) IF preserves Early Growth Response Protein 1 (EGR-1) expression in chronic cerebral hypoperfusion. Immunohistochemical analysis shows reduced EGR-1 expression in AL BCAS mice compared to IF BCAS mice in hippocampal CA3 and cortical regions following reprobe test. Scale bar: 20 μm. (D) Quantitative analysis reveals significantly higher EGR-1-positive cell counts in IF BCAS mice versus AL BCAS controls in the CA3 region. Data represent mean ± S.E.M. n = 5-6 mice in each experimental group. *p < 0.05; **P < 0.01.