Study of the dynamics of olfactory adaptaion in Apis mellifera and its effect on the perception of binary mixtures

FEDERICO GASCUE; NICOLAS PIREZ; LOCATELLI FERNANDO

Buenos Aires

Workshop; Fronteras en Biociencias 2018; 2018

IBIOBA-CONICET y Max Planck Institut

Sensory systems need to adjust themselves based in theexperience of the animals in order to optimize the detection and perception ofrelevant information over stimuli without predictive values. One of the mainphenomena implicated in this process is olfactoryadaptation, which is defined as the decrease of the sensitivity orresponse to a stimulus after a sustained exposure to it. In order to study thisphenomenon, we used the the honey bee (Apis mellifera) as a model. Bymeans of behavioral experiments we determined dynamic parameters of thephenomenon, such as induction and recovery times.We also put in evidence the effects that olfactoryadaptation has on the perception of binary mixtures, showing that when theanimals are adapted to the main component of the mixture, it reduces appetitivelearning of this component, while it can also facilitate learning of the minorcomponent. Additionally, we determined through calcium imaging experiments theneural activity patterns encoding binary odor mixtures in the antennal lobe aredrastically modified by olfactory adaptation, favoring the representation ofthe non-adapted minor component in a binary mixture of odors.