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  3. The influence of the ketogenic diet on insulin receptor expression in the caudal hippocampus
Title

The influence of the ketogenic diet on insulin receptor expression in the caudal hippocampus

    Item Description
    Limited Access
    The author(s) chose to restrict access to this thesis to current Whitman students, faculty, and staff. Please log in to view it.
    Linked Agent
    Creator (cre): Bond, Annalise Louise
    Advisor (adv): Knight, Leena
    Department (dpt): Whitman College. Biology Department
    Date
    May 9, 2018
    Graduation Year
    2018
    Abstract

    The ketogenic diet (KD) has long been used to treat intractable epilepsy when pharmacological methods proved ineffective. It is a high fat, low carbohydrate, calorie restricted diet that induces a metabolic state of ketosis in patients. Although it is common, the mechanism of action is not well understood and understanding it would likely inform diet administration to sustainability. We have identified the insulin signaling pathway as a possible candidate for this function of the KD because of its unique roles in the brain, including learning and memory, neuronal excitability, and reward pathways. Previous work in this lab has suggested that there is decreased expression of insulin receptors (IR) in several parts of the brain, specifically the hypothalamus, entorhinal cortex, and dentate gyrus, after administration of the KD. To add to research done in this lab, we localized and quantified IR expression using immunohistochemistry, microscopy, and digital image analysis in the caudal CA3 of the hippocampus, the medial habenula (MHb) and the periventricular (PV) nuclei of the thalamus in rats fed the KD compared to the control diet. After assessing several quantification measures, we used a color deconvolution and subtraction method of analysis on ImageJ to assess both the intensity and area of the diaminobenzidine (DAB) stain. The changes we noted between control and KD animals in the CA3, MHb, and PV were regionally distinct, but not significant. However, we did find a trend of decreased IR expression in animals fed the KD that was unique to the caudal region of the hippocampus. This trend, together with previous findings, suggest that IR expression and the insulin signaling pathway may be influenced by the KD during treatment for intractable epilepsy. This warrants further exploration to determine if insulin is an important aspect of the KD efficacy or if it is involved in the mechanism of action of the KD.

    Subject
    Ketogenic diet
    Hippocampus (Brain)
    Ketones
    Insulin -- Receptors -- Experiments
    Epilepsy -- Treatment
    Blood sugar
    Blood sugar monitoring
    Rats
    Wistar -- Analysis
    Stains and staining (Microscopy) -- Diaminobenzidine
    Brain
    Science
    Academic theses
    Whitman College 2018 -- Dissertation collection -- Biology Department
    Genre
    Theses
    Extent
    46 pages
    Permanent URL
    http://works.whitman.edu/445
    Rights
    http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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