Background: This study was to examine the effects of omega-3 supplementation and high-fat diet in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the male adult rat hippocampus.

Methods: Twenty one Wistar rats were divided into three groups: (1) regular diet (RD), (2) high-fat (HF) diet and (3) Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) diet. RD group was regarded as control. Animals in HF groups were exposed to the HF diet for 8 weeks and animals in DHA groups were treated with 100/mg/kg/day of DHA via oral gavage for 8 weeks. Hippocampal BDNF protein was assessed using commercial ELISA kits and the data was analyzed by one-way ANOVA. When appropriate, further differences were analyzed by LSD post hoc test. Statistical differences were considered significant at p<0.05.

Results: The results showed that the HF diet had no significant effect in BDNF protein level (p=0.873), while the DHA diet revealed a significant increase in BDNF protein level comparison with the RD (p=0.008) and HF (p=0.006) group

Conclusion: According to results of the present study, DHA diet can increase the amount of hippocampus BDNF protein level.