SUBJECTIVE RATHER THAN ABSOLUTE REWARD VALUE DETERMINES LONG-TERM MEMORY FORMATION IN HONEY BEES

MILAGROS AZCUETA; KLAPPEBACH MARTIN; CATALINA MADARNAS; FERNANDO LOCATELLI

Mar del Plata

Congreso; XXXII CONGRESO ANUAL SAN 2017; 2017

Sociedad Argentina de Invsetigaciones en Neurocienccias

SUBJECTIVE RATHER THAN ABSOLUTE REWARD VALUE DETERMINES LONG-TERM MEMORYFORMATION IN HONEY BEES. Milagros Azcueta, MartinKlappenbach, Catalina Madarnas , Fernando Locatelli.The honey bee is a classical model for studying the neuralbases of associative learning. The establishment of a protocol in which bees learnthe association between an odor and a reward while they provide access forneural recordings has been critical to elucidate many of the neural pathwaysinvolved in olfactory learning. The training protocol is based on the proboscisextension response which at the beginning of training is elicited by touching theantennae with sucrose solution. During conditioning an odor is presented few secondsbefore the sucrose solution. After few paired trials, the bees extend theproboscis toward the odor anticipating the reward. Several works have shownthat increasing sucrose concentration, reward volume, or the number trials,have a positive impact on learning and memory. Here we studied if theeffectiveness of reward to elicit memory formation does depend on the absolutevalue of the reward or if it is affected by its subjective value, which can bemanipulated based on the animal's expectations. We found that positive and negative changes in the sucrose concentrationof the reward used during the training, do have positive and negativeconsequences on long-term memory formation. In addition, we found that bees formshort and long-term reward expectations that modulate how training induces long-term memory. The results are consistent with previous studies that analyzed theeffect that different rewards have in memory in free flying bees.