Different Roles for Honey Bee Mushroom Bodies and Central Complex in Visual Learning of Colored Lights in an Aversive Conditioning Assay.

ABSTRACT: The honey bee is an excellent visual learner, but we know little about how and why it performs so well, or how visual information is learned by the bee brain. Here we examined the different roles of two key integrative regions of the brain in visual learning: the mushroom bodies and the central complex. We tested bees' learning performance in a new assay of color learning that used electric shock as punishment. In this assay a light field was paired with electric shock. The other half of the conditioning chamber was illuminated with light of a different wavelength and not paired with shocks. The unrestrained bee could run away from the light stimulus and thereby associate one wavelength with punishment, and the other with safety. We compared learning performance of bees in which either the

SUBMITTER: Plath JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5447682 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature