IFIBYNE   05513
INSTITUTO DE FISIOLOGIA, BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR Y NEUROCIENCIAS
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Dopaminergic modulation of appetitive long-term memory in Apis mellifera
Autor/es:
KLAPPEBACH MARTIN; LOCATELLI FERNANDO
Lugar:
Buenos AIres
Reunión:
Congreso; ISN Special Conference 2012; 2012
Resumen:
The
understanding of how reinforcements are encoded in the central nervous system
during learning and memory formation is a current issue in neurobiology. In
contrast to our knowledge from vertebrates, dopamine (DA) was found to mediate
aversive reinforcements and facilitate aversive memory in several invertebrate
species. However, the assumption that DA is exclusively involved in aversive
memory was recently challenged by a study in crabs that revealed that dopamine
impairs appetitive memory (Klappenbach et al 2012). In this work we extend this
study to an insect, the honey bee Apis mellifera, and test if DA affects
appetitive learning and memory in the olfactory modality. We found that systemic
injection of DA before the training session impairs appetitive long-term memory
without affecting acquisition or short-term memory. On a second experiment we
tested if it is only the administration of exogenous DA that affects appetitive
memory or if also the endogenous level DA plays a role in modulation of
appetitive memory formation. We injected the DA-antagonist flupentixol
immediately before a weak training protocol and found that blocking DA
receptors during training mimics the effect of a strong appetitive training
protocol and facilitates the induction of long-term appetitive memory. These
results reveal a novel action of DA in appetitive memory in honey bees and
together with results in the crab suggests a conserved dual role of DA across
species. The results indicate that DA signal mediates the reinforcement for
aversive memory, but also interferes with appetitive memory. The result
supports the hypothesis that DA and octopamine (OA) have dual and complementary
roles during learning and memory. They mediate the reinforcement signal
throughout aversive or appetitive training respectively, but also interfere
with the formation of memories of the opposite sign. Calcium imaging studies
are being performed now to evaluate if DA modulates the processing and encoding
of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli in the honey bee brain.