ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Brain-aging
Decanoic acid, an MCT dietary component, alleviates cognitive impairment, cellular senescence, and promotes autophagy in accelerated aging and neurotoxic mouse models induced by chronic administration of D-galactose and D-galactose/AlCl3
Provisionally accepted
- Jamia Hamdard University, New Delhi, India
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Cognitive decline advances with age, increasing the risk of dementia among older adults. The ketogenic diet, containing medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), is being investigated in the elderly to delay age-related symptoms and improve dementia in elderly Alzheimer's patients. However, the specific neuroprotective mechanisms of individual MCT components, decanoic acid and octanoic acid, are still unclear. We examined how these components affect the mouse models of accelerated aging induced by D-galactose and those combining D-galactose with aluminium chloride, which simulate age-related Alzheimer's disease(AD)-like toxicity. The results showed that MCT components provide neuroprotection in the Morris water maze test, enhancing memory and spatial learning. Decanoic acid, in particular, elevated antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, reduced glutathione, and catalase; promoted autophagy by inhibiting mTOR kinase activity; and decreased senescent cells marked by β-galactosidase, while also lowering amyloid toxicity. In contrast, octanoic acid did not exhibit any notable mechanistic effects. These findings highlight the distinctions between the neuroprotective mechanisms of decanoic and octanoic acids and indicate that the use of MCT-based diets should be reconsidered as preventive measures for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disorders.
Keywords: medium-chain triglycerides, Aging, cognitive impairment, Autophagy, senescence, amyloid toxicity
Received: 31 Jul 2025; Accepted: 28 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jain and Vohora. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Divya Vohora, dvohora@jamiahamdard.ac.in
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