Taurine and N‐acetylcysteine supplementation prevents memory impairment in high‐fat diet‐fed female mice

Background The risk to develop memory impairment in has been widely investigated in type 2 diabetes (T2D). There are several mechanisms proposed for T2D‐associated cognitive impairment, such as brain insulin resistance, synaptic dysfunction, inflammation, gliosis, or disruption of neuron‐astrocyte interactions (Garcia‐Serrano & Duarte, 2020). On the other hand, supplementation with the antioxidants taurine and N‐acetylcysteine (NAC) have been suggested to have benefits on reducing T2D phenotype and enhancing memory performance in diabetic mice models (Inam‐U‐Ilah et al, 2018). We aimed at studying mechanisms by which taurine and NAC improve memory in obesity‐associated T2D. Method Ten‐week‐old female C57Bl/6J mice were divided in 6 groups (n=10): control diet (CD 10%‐fat diet), high‐fat diet (HFD; 60% fat diet), CD/HFD supplemented with 3% taurine in drinking water (CD+T or HFD+T) or 3% N‐acetylcysteine (CD+NAC or HFD+NAC). After 2 months, hippocampal metabolic profiles were analysed by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) under isoflurane anaesthesia, memory performance was evaluated by behavioural testing with the novel location recognition (NLR) and novel object recognition (NOR) tasks, and diabetes phenotype was measured by monitoring weight, glucose tolerance test and HOMA insulin resistance. Result HFD group was overweight compared to CD group (p