Relationship between brain plasticity, learning and foraging performance in honey bees.

ABSTRACT: Brain structure and learning capacities both vary with experience, but the mechanistic link between them is unclear. Here, we investigated whether experience-dependent variability in learning performance can be explained by neuroplasticity in foraging honey bees. The mushroom bodies (MBs) are a brain center necessary for ambiguous olfactory learning tasks such as reversal learning. Using radio frequency identification technology, we assessed the effects of natural variation in foraging activity, and the age when first foraging, on both performance in reversal learning and on synaptic connectivity in the MBs. We found that reversal learning performance improved at foraging onset and could decline with greater foraging experience. If bees started foraging before the normal age, as a result o

SUBMITTER: Cabirol A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5927457 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature