Pre-weaning dietary iron deficiency impairs spatial learning and memory in the cognitive holeboard task in piglets

Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in humans, affecting more than two billion people worldwide. Early-life iron deficiency can lead to irreversible deficits in learning and memory. The pig represents a promising model animal for studying such deficits, because of its similarities to humans during early development. We investigated the effects of pre-weaning dietary iron deficiency in piglets on growth, blood parameters, cognitive performance, and brain histology later in life. Four to six days after birth, 10 male sibling pairs of piglets were taken from 10 different sows. One piglet of each pair was given a 200 mg iron dextran injection and fed a control milk diet for 28 days (88 mg Fe/kg), whereas the other sibling was given a saline injection and fed an iron deficient (ID) milk diet (21 mg Fe/kg). Due to severely retarded growth of two of the ID piglets, only eight ID piglets were tested behaviorally. After dietary treatment, all piglets were fed a balanced commercial pig diet (190–240 mg Fe/kg). Starting at 7.5 weeks of age, piglets were tested in a spatial cognitive holeboard task. In this task, 4 of 16 holes contain a hidden food reward, allowing measurement of working (short-term) memory and reference (long-term) memory (RM) simultaneously. All piglets received 40–60 acquisition trials, followed by a 16-trial reversal phase. ID piglets showed permanently retarded growth and a strong decrease in blood iron parameters during dietary treatment. After treatment, ID piglets' blood iron values restored to normal levels. In the holeboard task, ID piglets showed impaired RM learning during acquisition and reversal. Iron staining at necropsy at 12 weeks of age showed that ID piglets had fewer iron-containing cells in hippocampal regions CA1 and dentate gyrus (DG). The number of iron-containing cells in CA3 correlated positively with the average RM score during acquisition across all animals. Our results support the hypothesis that early-life iron deficiency leads to lasting cognitive deficits. The piglet as a model animal, tested in the holeboard, can be useful in future research for assessing long-term cognitive effects of early-life diets or diet-induced deficiencies.