Neural correlates of learning in the honeybee

doi:10.1016/0166-2236(81)90085-0

Trends in Neurosciences

Volume 4, 1981, Pages 270-273

https://doi.org/10.1016/0166-2236(81)90085-0 Get rights and content

Abstract

This article summarizes recent findings from studies of single neurones in the bee brain which alter their response characteristics during the process of learning.

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Cited by (34)

Habituation and dishabituation of exploratory and appetitive responses in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.)
2005, Behavioural Brain Research
Sucrose-induced antennal and proboscis motor responses of the honey bee were comparatively studied using muscle responses. The activity of the proboscis muscle responses was correlated with sucrose stimulus concentration, but that of antennal muscle responses was not. Both responses habituated following repetitive stimulation with a low sucrose concentration and dishabituated upon stimulation with a high sucrose concentration. Despite the different response properties of the responses, their habituation kinetics were indistinguishable. The absence of sensory adaptation was confirmed by taste hair recordings. The potential for habituation was related to the functions of the responses studied. The exploratory antennal response used for continuous sampling of the environment habituated to a smaller extent than the appetitive proboscis response.
Effects of imidacloprid and deltamethrin on associative learning in honeybees under semi-field and laboratory conditions
2004, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety
We have compared the sublethal effects of two insecticides in the honeybee (imidacloprid and deltamethrin) in both semi-field and laboratory conditions. A sugar solution containing 24 μg kg⁻¹ of imidacloprid or 500 μg kg⁻¹ of deltamethrin was offered to a colony set in an outdoor flight cage. In contrast to imidacloprid, deltamethrin had lethal effect on workers bees. The contamination of syrup with imidacloprid or deltamethrin induced a decrease in both the foraging activity on the food source and activity at the hive entrance. Negative effects of imidacloprid were also observed in an olfactory learnt discrimination task. Free-flying foragers were taken from the contaminated feeder and subjected to a conditioned proboscis extension response (PER) assay under laboratory conditions. As with free-flying bees, no impact of deltamethrin was found on the learning performances of restrained individuals in the PER procedure, whilst significant effects were found with imidacloprid in both semi-field and laboratory conditions.
The effects of queenlessness on the maturation of the honey bee olfactory system
1998, Behavioural Brain Research
During the first week of adult life the olfactory system of the honey bee undergoes a critical period of maturation [Masson and Arnold, Organisation and plasticity of the olfactory system of the honeybee, Apis mellifera, in: Menzel and Mercer (Eds.), Neurobiology and Behaviour of Honeybees. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1987, pp. 280–295]. This is accompanied by dramatic increases in the volume of the antennal lobes [Winnington et al., Structural plasticity of identified glomeruli in the antennal lobes of the adult worker honey bee. J. Comp. Neurol., 365 (1996) 479–490], centres of the brain that receive direct input from primary olfactory receptor neurons housed in the antennae of the bee. Here, we show that during the first 4–6 days of adult life there is a significant increase in the percentage of bees that respond to a conditioned olfactory stimulus after a single conditioning trial and, furthermore, that the ontogeny of this olfactory learning behaviour is altered significantly if the queen is removed from the colony. The absence of a queen during early adult life also has site-specific effects on the maturation of the antennal lobes of the brain. These results show for the first time that the queen's presence in a colony has a significant impact not only on the behaviour of the adult worker honey bee, but also on the structure of the brain.
A computational model of the response of honey bee antennal lobe circuitry to odor mixtures: Overshadowing, blocking and unblocking can arise from lateral inhibition
1997, Behavioural Brain Research
Recent studies of learning about elements of odorant mixtures in honey bees have identified several types of interactions between mixture components, such as overshadowing and blocking. The latter phenomenon in particular indicates at least a limited ability of subjects to identify the most salient element of a binary mixture. Here we show that the circuitry in the antennal lobes, the first neuropil in which synaptic interaction affects sensory processing, could give rise to both effects given the incorporation of modifiable synapses onto inhibitory circuitry. The neural model of the antennal lobe that we present incorporates identified cell types and includes a biologically realistic modulatory neuron with which modifiable Hebb-like synaptic interactions take place. A learning rule that incorporates modifiable connections from output (projection) neurons onto the modulatory neuron is sufficient to account for behavioral results on generalization and overshadowing. A second type of excitatory connection from the modulatory neuron onto local inhibitory interneurons is necessary to reproduce behavioral results from blocking and unblocking. We suggest that the neural representations of odor mixtures in the antennal lobe can be modified by previous exposure to one of the mixture components. These results provide testable hypotheses that will guide future behavioral and physiological analyses.
Expression of the surface antigen A2B7 in adult and developing honeybee olfactory pathway
1996, International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience
In order to identify molecules involved in the development of the honeybee olfactory pathway, hybridoma technology has been used. Among different cell lines, A2B7 has been selected. It produces a specific antibody for a surface glycoprotein of 91 kDa. This protein is mainly expressed by both the antennal receptor cells and mushroom body neurons. Based on (i) the spatio-temporal pattern of expression during pupal development; (ii) the cell surface location of the antigen; and (iii) the partial molecular characterization of the antigen, a putative role for this protein in axonal fasciculation and guidance is discussed.
Towards a cognitive understanding of odor discrimination: Combining experimental and theoretical approaches
1995, Behavioural Processes
In response to changes in odorous environmental conditions, most species (ranging from lower invertebrates to mammals), demonstrate high adaptive behavioral performances. Complex natural chemical signals (i.e. odorous blends involved in food search), are particularly unstable and fluctuating, in quality, space and time. Nevertheless, adapted behavioral responses related to meaningful odor signals can be observed even in complex natural odorous environments, demonstrating that the underlying olfactory neural network is a very dynamic pattern recognition device. In the honeybee, a large amount of experimental data have been collected at different levels of observation within the olfactory system, from signal processing to behavior, including cellular and molecular properties. However, no set of data considered by itself can give insight into the mechanisms underlying odor discrimination and pattern recognition. Here, by concentrating on deciphering the neural mechanisms underlying encoding and decoding of the olfactory signal in the two first layers of the neural network, we illustrate how a theoretical approach helps us to integrate the different experimental data and to extract relevant parameters (features) which might be selected and used to store an odor representation in a behavioral context.

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^∗: Joachim Erber is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Animal Physiology of the Free University Berlin, Grunewaldstr. 34, D-1000 Berlin 41, F.R.G.

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Trends in Neurosciences

Neural correlates of learning in the honeybee

Abstract

The Hungry Fly

Physiol. Entomol.

Physiol. Entomol.

J. Comp. Physiol.