IFIBYNE   05513
INSTITUTO DE FISIOLOGIA, BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR Y NEUROCIENCIAS
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Discrimination and generalization in natural floral blends
Autor/es:
FERNANDEZ P; LOCATELLI F; YOSHIHIRO A; SMITH B
Lugar:
San Francisco
Reunión:
Congreso; International Symposium for Olfaction and Taste; 2008
Institución organizadora:
Association for Chemoreception Science
Resumen:
Discrimination and Generalization in Natural Floral Blends Patricia C Fernandez, Fernando F Locatelli, Anna Yoshihiro, Rebecca Bramble, Brian H Smith. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States Floral perfumes are highly variable combinations of many volatiles. These volatiles vary slightly even among flowers from the same species. In this context, pollinators must establish if a newly encountered flower is similar to a previously rewarded one or to a non-rewarded one, turning foraging decisions into fine tuned generalization-discrimination tasks. In the present study we performed behavioral experiments and calcium imaging in the antennal lobe of honey bees to study if learning modifies the perceptual boundaries used to classify a floral perfume within a rewarded or a non-rewarded category. We designed artificial blends that mimic the components and the concentration variability of two cultivars of snapdragon flowers. All designed blends share the same components but could be differentiated based on the relative concentration of the components, which was more similar within examples of the same cultivar than between them. Using the proboscis extension response (PER) paradigm, bees were conditioned using 5 different examples from one cultivar. When novel blends were presented, bees generalized the conditioned response between both cultivars. However, when bees were differentially trained such that examples of one cultivar were rewarded while the other cultivar wasn’t, bees could extrapolate the discrimination to novel examples of both cultivars. Additionally, we used calcium imaging to study the representation of the components and floral blends in the antennal lobe. The space/temporal patterns of odor evoked activity in projection neurons correlate with the slight differences in the blends composition. Ongoing experiments are now aimed at comparing the neural representation of rewarded and non-rewarded cultivars in naïve and trained bees. Supported by DC007997 NIH-NIDCD.Presentation Preference: Poster OnlySubmission Type: Standard SubmissionSystem: Olfaction: CNSExperimental Approach: Imaging (calcium, sodium, etc.)Don Tucker Memorial Award: Polak Young Investigator Award: Science of Fragrance Award: