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Molecular Insights into Honey Bee Brain Plasticity

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Honeybee Neurobiology and Behavior

Abstract

The honey bee worker experiences changing sensory environments throughout her adult life as she progresses from a young nurse bee living inside the hive to a forager bee that navigates the outdoors. Honey bees continually process and learn new sensory information, and their brain changes accordingly. Numerous studies have demonstrated age- and experience-dependent variations in neuropil volume and synaptic density of the honey bee antennal lobes (ALs) and the mushroom bodies (MBs), in particular linked to foraging and odor learning. Changes in antennal sensitivity and AL neural activity after olfactory learning have also been documented. Here, we present evidence for molecular changes occurring in the adult honey bee brain. We discuss how sensory experience and learning affect expression patterns of olfactory receptor genes in the antennae and synaptic adhesion molecules in higher brain centres. Our studies indicate the molecular basis of sensory processing is highly plastic throughout life, and that it is regulated by sensory input. We discuss how sensory regulated expression of olfactory receptors and synaptic molecules may provide a basis for understanding anatomical and physiological plasticity of the honey bee brain.

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Abbreviations

AL:

Antennal lobe

CS:

Conditioned stimulus

MB:

Mushroom body

US:

Unconditioned stimulus

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Judith Reinhard & Charles Claudianos

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  1. Judith Reinhard
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  2. Charles Claudianos
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Correspondence to Charles Claudianos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Neurobiology, Universität Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany

    C. Giovanni Galizia

  2. , Department of Neurobiology, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 28-30, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Dorothea Eisenhardt

  3. , Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition An, CNRS - Université Paul Sabatier, Route de Narbonne 118, Toulouse Cedex 9, 31062, France

    Martin Giurfa

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Reinhard, J., Claudianos, C. (2012). Molecular Insights into Honey Bee Brain Plasticity. In: Galizia, C., Eisenhardt, D., Giurfa, M. (eds) Honeybee Neurobiology and Behavior. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2099-2_27

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