Figure 1.

Maternal and postnatal diet alter cognition. A) Mouse dams are fed either SC or HFD throughout gestation and lactation. Offspring were weaned either onto SC or MS diets, creating 4 experimental groups. Male and female offspring were then tested in a series of operant tasks. B, C) Neither maternal nor postnatal diet impacted animals’ ability to learn the FR1 task (male, left; female, right). D) Male offspring motivation is not altered by diet. E) Female HFD-fed offspring are less motivated to work for reinforcer on a PR task. Female offspring supplemented with methyl donors are more motivated to work for reinforcer. (n: male: SC = 15, HFD = 15, SC + MD = 14, HFD + MS = 15; female: SC = 14, HFD = 13, SC + MS = 15, HFD + MS = 18 in all figures.) PCA, pavlovian conditioned approach. *P < 0.05 main effect of maternal diet; ^$P < 0.05 main effect of MS.