Obesity-related changes in hippocampal function in aging. (A) Body mass of young and aged mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) or standard diet (SD) at the time of sacrifice. Data are means ± SEM. *p < .05 vs young mice (SD), #
p < .05 vs aged mice (SD), $
p < .05 vs young mice (HFD). (B) Aging exacerbates obesity-induced cognitive impairment (elevated plus maze-based learning protocol; see Methods section for details). For obese aged mice, transfer latency was similar on Days 1 and 2 (corresponding to a learning index: ~0), indicating that these mice had significantly impaired learning ability. Data are given as mean ± SEM. *p < .05 vs young mice (SD), #
p < .05 vs aged mice (SD), $
p < .05 vs young mice (HFD).