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Fish oil omega-3 Fatty Acids Alleviate Postoperative delirium-like Behavior in aged mice by Attenuating Neuroinflammation and Oxidative Stress

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Abstract

Postoperative delirium (POD) is a common and serious neuropsychiatric syndrome among older patients, and lacks effective therapies. Omega-3 fatty acids, possessing anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, have shown potent neuroprotective effects in several diseases. The present study investigated whether omega-3 fatty acids could exert a neuroprotective role against POD in aged mice. A mouse model of POD was established to explore the role of omega-3 fatty acids in laparotomy-induced delirium-like behavior by evaluating systemic inflammatory changes, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and behavior at different time points in aged mice. Oral gavage with omega-3 fatty acids (300 mg/kg) for 3 weeks before surgery significantly attenuated anesthesia/surgery-induced POD-like behavior and the accumulation of proinflammatory cytokines from the peripheral blood in aged mice. Moreover, it also remarkably mitigated neuroinflammation and the oxidative stress response (malondialdehyde [MDA] and superoxide dismutase [SOD]) in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of surgical mice. Our findings provided evidence that pretreatment with omega-3 fatty acids may play a vital role in the treatment of POD through mechanisms involving its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, which may be a promising prevention strategy for POD in aged patients.

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Data Availability

Upon a reasonable request, the data supporting the results of this study can obtain from the corresponding authors.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Xiaolin Wang, Li Li and Zheng Zhang for kindly providing excellent technical assistance.

Funding

This work was supported by the project of Affiliated Hospital North Sichuan Medical College (Grant No. 2021ZD011), the special cooperation project between Nanchong city and North Sichuan Medical College (Grant No. 22SXQT0026), the Scientific Research and Development Program of North Sichuan Medical College (Grant No. 7500520016), and the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (Grant No. 2021J01385).

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Author notes

  1. Min Zhu, Ming Li, Simin Yang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, China

    Min Zhu, Ming Li, Simin Yang, Jiang Li, Qingbo Yu, Changlin Chen, Yang Zhang, Jingyan Lin & Faping Tu

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, Suining Central Hospital, Suining, Sichuan, China

    Simin Yang

  3. Department of Anesthesiology, Shengli Clinical Medical College of Fujian Medical University, Fujian Provincial Hospital, Fuzhou, China

    Cansheng Gong

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  1. Min Zhu
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Contributions

FT, JL, ML, MZ, and SY designed experiments. ML, SY, JL, CC and CG performed experiments. ML, SY, QY and YZ analyzed data. ML, MZ, SY and FT wrote the main manuscript text. All authors have reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jingyan Lin or Faping Tu.

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All animal experiments were reviewed and approved by North Sichuan Medical College Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

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Zhu, M., Li, M., Yang, S. et al. Fish oil omega-3 Fatty Acids Alleviate Postoperative delirium-like Behavior in aged mice by Attenuating Neuroinflammation and Oxidative Stress. Neurochem Res 49, 157–169 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-023-04020-9

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