Abstract
Free-flying bees learn efficiently to solve numerous visual tasks. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this capacity remain unexplored. We used a 3D virtual reality (VR) environment to study visual learning and determine if it leads to changes in immediate early gene (IEG) expression in specific areas of the bee brain. We focused on kakusei, Hr38 and Egr1, three IEGs that have been related to bee foraging and orientation, and compared their relative expression in the calyces of the mushroom bodies, the optic lobes and the rest of the brain after color discrimination learning. Bees learned to discriminate virtual stimuli displaying different colors and retained the information learned. Successful learners exhibited Egr1 upregulation only in the calyces of the mushroom bodies, thus uncovering a privileged involvement of these brain regions in associative color learning and the usefulness of Egr1 as a marker of neural activity induced by this phenomenon.
Highlights
Free-flying bees learn efficiently to solve numerous visual tasks
Our work shows that visual discrimination learning under virtual-reality conditions leads to an enhancement of immediate early gene (IEG) expression in the case of Egr[1] in the calyces of the mushroom bodies in successful honey bee learners
Strictly speaking the two categories did not differ with respect to this parameter, the significant interaction between Trial and Condition suggests a experimental conditions and revealed the implication of the calyces of the mushroom bodies in associative visual learning and memory in honey bees
Summary
Free-flying bees learn efficiently to solve numerous visual tasks. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this capacity remain unexplored. The first one, termed kakusei (which means ‘awakening’ in Japanese), is a nuclear noncoding RNA transiently and strongly induced in the brain of European workers by seizures that can be induced by awakening them from anesthesia[25] It is activated after the experience of dancing in the hive following a foraging flight and in pollen foragers so that it seems related to the neural excitation resulting from foraging activities[26]. The third gene is the early growth response gene[1] (Egr1), whose expression is induced in the brain of honey bees and bumblebees upon foraging[29,30] and orientation flights[32], and which seems to be controlled by circadian timing of foraging[33] None of these IEGs have been studied so far in the context of associative learning and memory formation in the honey bee. Our results show that successful learners exhibited Egr[1] upregulation only in the calyces of the mushroom bodies, uncovering a privileged involvement of these brain regions in associative color learning
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