Evaluation of episodic-like memory in obese dogs

• Grant number: 19/06049-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2019
• End date: November 30, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine - Animal Clinics and Surgery
• Principal Investigator: Rogério Martins Amorim
• Grantee: Jéssica Cardia de Melo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Obesity is a growing disease in the human population and in the canine population. Data indicate that about 20% of dogs in industrialized countries are obese. The etiology of this disease is directly related to an energy imbalance, in which the animal obtains more energy than it actually needs, causing accumulation of it. The energetic excess is stored in the form of lipids in the adipose tissue spread throughout the body of the animal. However, this storage promotes metabolic and structural changes in the cells that modifies their physiological functions, which begin to act in a disordered way, causing numerous disorders called metabolic syndrome. The dysfunctions caused by obesity will affect several organic compartments, such as the central nervous system, mainly the hippocampus, structure responsible for memory. Memory can be categorized into distinct denominations according to its characteristics, however, the present work will evaluate episodic-like memory in dogs, which is responsible for the processing and storage of short-term events, such as information of "what" and "where", relating them to previous experiences. However, this type of memory has the characteristic of being the first target of affections of the nervous system, which makes it an instrument for the verification of cerebral dysfunctions. For this, a test was developed and after its execution it is possible to evaluate the performance of episodic-like memory of dogs. Thus, this work aims to compare the performance of healthy and obese dogs in the episodic memory test in order to identify the damage of obesity and the metabolic disorders caused by it in the health of the cognitive system of dogs.