Abstract
Since their discovery in insects, pheromones are considered as ubiquitous and stereotyped chemical messengers acting in intraspecific animal communication. Here we studied the effect of pheromones in a different context as we investigated their capacity to induce persistent modulations of associative learning and memory. We used honey bees, Apis mellifera, and combined olfactory conditioning and pheromone preexposure with disruption of neural activity and two-photon imaging of olfactory brain circuits, to characterize the effect of pheromones on olfactory learning and memory. Geraniol, an attractive pheromone component, and 2-heptanone, an aversive pheromone, improved and impaired, respectively, olfactory learning and memory via a durable modulation of appetitive motivation, which left odor processing unaffected. Consistently, interfering with aminergic circuits mediating appetitive motivation rescued or diminished the cognitive effects induced by pheromone components. We thus show that these chemical messengers act as important modulators of motivational processes and influence thereby animal cognition.
Highlights
Since their discovery in insects, pheromones are considered as ubiquitous and stereotyped chemical messengers acting in intraspecific animal communication
As olfactory proboscis extension reflex (PER) conditioning is a case of Pavlovian learning involving repeated exposures to an odorant and sucrose solution[14], we studied the effect of GER and 2H preexposure on the processing of odorants and on appetitive motivation evaluated through sucrose responsiveness
Our results reveal that pheromone components induce a persistent, valence-dependent modulation of learning and memory
Summary
Since their discovery in insects, pheromones are considered as ubiquitous and stereotyped chemical messengers acting in intraspecific animal communication. Pheromones are chemical signals released by a sender into the environment to convey specific messages to members of the same species, in which they release stereotyped and adaptive responses[1] Since their definition, proposed six decades ago, pheromones have been confined to an intraspecific communication scenario, so that less is known about their possible consequences in contexts different from that of information exchange[2]. Research on rodents[3,4] and rabbits[5] has shown that some pheromone components can replace reinforcing stimuli during associative conditioning and mediate the learning of odor or contextual cues In contrast to these works, we asked if prior exposure to pheromone components induces subsequent and persistent motivational changes affecting the way in which animals learn and memorize when the pheromone signals are no longer present. Besides acting as chemical messengers, pheromonal signals contribute to behavioral plasticity by preparing individuals to learn and memorize according to pheromonal valence
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