Can fat improve your memory? A study in rats suggests it may. Rats that were given oleic acids—fatty acid byproducts of fat digestion—were better able to avoid unpleasant stimuli by remembering their location than rats that didn’t get the fat. Oleic acid injections also made the rats better at navigating a maze, another measure of memory. The authors argue that oleic acids may have helped early humans remember where they had found a particularly rich snack in the wild, so they could return later for seconds. But don’t start eating unhealthy fatty foods to boost your memory; other studies suggest a high-fat diet may raise the risk of dementia.
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, May 12, 2009