Abstract: Objective To investigate the protective effect of dietary intake of n-3 polyun saturated fatty acid(PUFA) on lipopoly saccharide(LPS)-induced dopamine neuroninjury.Methods The male SD rats were randomly divided in to normal saline(NS)control group,LPS group,LPS+30% fish oil group,and LPS+60% fish oil group.The skmibased feed of two fish oil groups was added with 30% and 60% of fish oil.The rats were administered with LPS by stereotaxic injection at the dose of 5μg/rat.The NS group was in jected with NS 5μl/rat.Fouteen days after the in jections,the rotational be havior of the rats was observed and immuno fluorescence method was adopted to detect the change of rate limiting enzymety rosine hydroxylase(TH)in the dopamine substantia nigra neurons.Results The rats in NS control group showed no obvious abnormal behavior.The numbers of turning around of the rats in LPS group were obviously larger than that of the rats in two diet groups(P<0.05).Compared with the NS control group,the number of TH positive cells in LPS group was significantly reduced(P<0.05).But compared with the NS group,the number of TH positive cells in the fish oil groups showed no significant difference.Conclusion Dietary supplements of n-3 PUFAs or fish oil have protective effect on dopaminergic neurons.