Ketogenic diet prevents cardiac arrest-induced cerebral ischemic neurodegeneration

Ketogenic diet (KD) is an effective treatment for intractable epilepsies. We recently found that KD can prevent seizure and myoclonic jerk in a rat model of post-hypoxic myoclonus. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that KD can prevent the cerebral ischemic neurodegeneration in this animal model. Rats fed a standard diet or KD for 25 days were being subjected to mechanically induced cardiac arrest brain ischemia for 8 min 30 s. Nine days after cardiac arrest, frozen rat brains were sectioned for evaluation of ischemia-induced neurodegeneration using fluoro-jade (FJ) staining. The FJ positive degenerating neurons were counted manually. Cardiac arrest-induced cerebral ischemia in rats fed the standard diet exhibited extensive neurodegeneration in the CA1 region of the hippocampus, the number of FJ positive neurons was 822 +/- 80 (n = 4). They also showed signs of neurodegeneration in the Purkinje cells of the cerebellum and in the thalamic reticular nucleus, the number of FJ positive neurons in the cerebellum was 55 +/- 27 (n = 4), the number of FJ positive neurons in the thalamic reticular nucleus was 22 +/- 5 (n = 4). In contrast, rats fed KD showed no evidence of neurodegeneration, the number of FJ positive neurons in these areas were zero. The results demonstrate that KD can prevent cardiac arrest-induced cerebral ischemic neurodegeneration in selected brain regions.