BDNF and Cognitive impairment: Cognitive impairment and psychological abnormalities described in mouse models of diet-induced obesity (DIO; Buettner et al., 2012) are often connected to a reduction in molecules associated with neurogenesis and/or learning/memory such as brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF; Molteni et al., 2002), dopamine (DA; Kaczmarczyk et al., 2013) and inflammatory bioactives (Pistell et al., 2010).