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Algal toxin impairs sea lion memory and hippocampal connectivity, with implications for strandings

2015; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 350; Issue: 6267 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.aac5675

1095-9203

Peter F. Cook, Colleen Reichmuth, Andrew A. Rouse, Laura A. Libby, Sophie Dennison, Owen Carmichael, Kris T. Kruse-Elliott, Josh Bloom, Baljeet Singh, Vanessa Fravel, Lorraine Barbosa, Jim J. Stuppino, William G. Van Bonn, Frances M. D. Gulland, Charan Ranganath,

Photoreceptor and optogenetics research

Red tides make dinner hard to find Domoic acid (DA) is a neurotoxin produced by marine algae. When present in large amounts, it is harmful to marine organisms and to humans. Cook et al. tested California sea lions being treated at a marine mammal rescue facility. Animals that had evidence of exposure to DA had lesions in their hippocampus and displayed reduced performance on spatial memory tasks. Because such tasks are essential to foraging in a marine environment, increasing exposure to DA may be contributing to increasing sea lion strandings. Science , this issue p. 1545