Experience dependent changes in odor signaling in the Honey Bee Brain

JERNIGAN CHRISTOPHER; SMITH BRIAN; LOCATELLI FERNANDO

Montevideo

Conferencia; International Conference for Neuroethology; 2016

Internationa Society for Neuroethology

Experience dependent changes in odorsignaling in the Honey Bee Brain ChristopherM. Jernigan1, Fernando Locatelli2, and Brian H. Smith1 Odorexperience modifies circuits in the insect antennal lobe (AL). During appetitive olfactory learning, octopamine (OA) actsin the AL via one of its receptors AmOA1, which is primarily expressed on inhibitory(GABAergic) neurons. We have reported variation in expression of AmOA1in the AL in forager bees of unknown age or experience. We proposed that differencesin olfactory experience leads to individual differences in the physiologicalprocessing of an odor and the way the brain expresses AmOA1.  Totest this hypothesis, we controlled the age and olfactory experience of beesfrom a single matriline. We set up young, newly emerged bees in queen-right coloniesand maintained them in different conditions. One colony was allowed to forageopenly and experience natural associations of reward with floral odors. Twoother colonies were maintained in tents and experienced association of a singlemonomolecular odor with reinforcement.  Wesampled known aged bees from each colony and used calciumimaging and immunostaining to establish how experience affects the AL. Gross glomerular activation patterns elicited bythe different odors were conserved across bees from different treatments.However, glomerular response profiles were more consistent across bees withlimited olfactory experience than across bees that had been openly foraging. Glomerulishowing more consistent responses were the glomeruli that are recruited by theodor to which the bees had been continuously exposed. Furthermore, AmOA1 stainingwas more uniform among individuals with limited experience. These results showthat consistent experience drives modifications of the AL network withinindividual bees.