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Olfactory interference during inhibitory backward pairing in honey bees.

Matthieu Dacher1, Brian H Smith

  • 1School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. matthieu.dacher@free.fr

Plos One
|October 24, 2008
PubMed
Summary

Honey bees exhibit olfactory interference, a new form of inhibitory learning where an odor presented after sucrose can block learned responses. This process, dependent on the odor-PER link, offers insights into memory formation.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Animal Behavior
  • Olfactory Learning

Background:

  • Honey bees serve as a model for studying olfactory plasticity.
  • The proboscis extension response (PER) is a key indicator of learned olfactory associations.
  • Forward pairing of odor and sucrose leads to excitatory memory, while backward pairing is less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the effects of backward pairing of odor and sucrose on honey bee behavior.
  • To characterize a novel form of inhibitory plasticity termed olfactory interference.
  • To explore the neural mechanisms underlying olfactory memory formation.

Main Methods:

  • Honey bees were subjected to backward pairing of an odor and sucrose stimulation.
  • The proboscis extension response (PER) was measured to assess olfactory learning and memory.
  • Cimetidine was injected into the deutocerebrum to investigate its effect on olfactory interference.

Main Results:

  • Backward pairing of odor and sucrose, specifically with a 15-second interval, induced olfactory interference, inhibiting the PER.
  • Bees exposed to olfactory interference showed reduced performance in subsequent excitatory conditioning.
  • Olfactory interference was linked to backward pairing-induced inhibitory learning, and cimetidine impaired this process.

Conclusions:

  • Olfactory interference relies on the associative link between odor and PER, not odor and sucrose.
  • Odor-sucrose pairings can result in either odor-PER association or odor-induced PER inhibition.
  • Olfactory interference provides a model for understanding the gating mechanisms of excitatory and inhibitory olfactory memories.