Research reportKetogenic diet attenuates spatial and item memory impairment in pentylenetetrazol-kindled rats

•KD decreased the body weight gain and the bregma-lambda length of rats.•PTZ-induced kindling impaired the NOR and NPR exploratory ability in the ND group.•KD attenuated the decrease of exploration ratio both in NOR and NPR in kindled rats.•KD had a slight protective effect on spatial probe memory in MWM test.

The ketogenic diet (KD) controls seizure and improves cognition in patients with drug refractory epilepsy. However, few experimental models have shown this neuroprotective effect on cognition. In this study, we investigated the cognitive protective effects of KD in pentylenetetrazol (PTZ)-kindled rats. We used two relatively low-stress behavioral assessment methods, the novel object recognition (NOR) task and the novel placement recognition (NPR) task, to reveal impairment in item and spatial memory, respectively. We used the Morris water maze (MWM) test for comparisons amongst memory assessment methods. The KD group had a slower body weight gain and shorter bregma-lambda length than the control normal diet (ND) group. KD did not increase anxiety or decrease motor activities in an open-field test. KD attenuated the decrease in exploration ratio both in NOR and NPR tasks in kindled rats. Compared to the kindled ND rats, kindled KD rats stayed longer in target quarter during the probe trial testing of MWM. However, there were no differences in memory acquisition based on the MWM test results. In conclusion, KD attenuated the spatial and item memory impairment in PTZ-induced seizures.