Failure to Find Ethanol‐Induced Conditioned Taste Aversion in Honey Bees (<i>Apis mellifera</i>L.)

Varnon, Christopher A.; Dinges, Christopher W.; Black, Timothy E.; Wells, Harrington; Abramson, Charles I.

doi:10.1111/acer.13761

Cited by 22 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Indeed, having experienced a scent in the hive or in the nectar reward has been shown to significantly improve harnessed PER response in some stingless bees [35,37]; furthermore, bumble bees fed with scented sucrose before olfactory conditioning exhibited a better PER performance than those who received unscented sucrose [31]. Our results are coherent with the findings in [35,37,68], indicating that taste receptors may play a larger role in olfactory learning in bees, and that type of odor matters when the CS is in the US. Integration of gustatory and olfactory pathways facilitates rapid learning of food cues [38,69].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Olfactory Learning in the Stingless Bee Melipona eburnea Friese (Apidae: Meliponini)

Amaya–Márquez

Tusso

Hernández

et al. 2019

Insects

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Olfactory learning and floral scents are co-adaptive traits in the plant–pollinator relationship. However, how scent relates to cognition and learning in the diverse group of Neotropical stingless bees is largely unknown. Here we evaluated the ability of Melipona eburnea to be conditioned to scent using the proboscis extension reflex (PER) protocol. Stingless bees did not show PER while harnessed but were able to be PER conditioned to scent when free-to-move in a mini-cage (fmPER). We evaluated the effect of: 1) unconditioned stimulus (US) reward, and 2) previous scent–reward associations on olfactory learning performance. When using unscented-US, PER-responses were low on day 1, but using scented-US reward the olfactory PER-response increased on day 1. On day 2 PER performance greatly increased in bees that previously had experienced the same odor and reward combination, while bees that experienced a different odor on day 2 showed poor olfactory learning. Bees showed higher olfactory PER conditioning to guava than to mango odor. The effect of the unconditioned stimulus reward was not a significant factor in the model on day 2. This indicates that olfactory learning performance can increase via either taste receptors or accumulated experience with the same odor. Our results have application in agriculture and pollination ecology.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Olfactory Learning in the Stingless Bee Melipona eburnea Friese (Apidae: Meliponini)

Amaya–Márquez

Tusso

Hernández

et al. 2019

Insects

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“…Several studies have already made a good case in establishing the honeybee as a model in research devoted to alcoholism. It has been demonstrated that bees, which readily consumed up to 20% ethyl alcohol solution with sucrose, displayed no significant aversion or avoidance to this drug and even preferred solutions containing it (Abramson et al 2000(Abramson et al , 2004aSokolowski et al 2012;Varnon et al 2018;Mustard et al 2019). Furthermore, ethanol consumption by bees was showed to result in dose-dependent impairment of feeding activity, locomotion, social behaviour and learning (Abramson et al 2000(Abramson et al , 2004b(Abramson et al , 2005(Abramson et al , 2015Božič et al 2006;Maze et al 2006;Mustard et al 2008;Mixson et al 2010;Wright et al 2012;Giannoni-Guzmán et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alcohol intoxication resistance and alcohol dehydrogenase levels differ between the honeybee castes

et al. 2020

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Various animal models are used in the study of alcoholism, with the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) among them. Here, we tested the hypothesis that foragers show higher intoxication resistance to alcohol than nurses, an issue thus far not investigated. To this end, we measured the latency to full sedation when exposed to alcohol in foragers, nurses and reverted nurses. In addition, we measured alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) levels in these worker castes. Caste status was confirmed by comparison of the size of their hypopharyngeal glands. We detected high intoxication resistance to alcohol and presence of ADH in foragers. In nurses, we detected significantly lower intoxication resistance to alcohol and no ADH. These between-caste differences cannot be explained by the age difference between castes as in reverted nurses, characterized by similar age to foragers, we detected an intermediate intoxication resistance to alcohol and no ADH. Our results suggest possible natural exposure to alcohol in different castes of workers. As such, we further develop the honeybee as a model in alcoholism-related research and open new research avenues.

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“…Yet, this discrepancy seems to rely on procedural methods rather than on a true biological capacity (or incapacity) for learning to avoid toxic food. Ethanol (EtOH) was one of the substances used to induce conditioned food aversion (Varnon, Dinges, Black, Wells, and Abramson, 2018). Bees were fed a 2M sucrose solution scented with an odorant and containing EtOH, which was used to induce an aversion towards the odorant present in the sucrose solution.…”

Section: Cta In Honey Bees and Other Insect Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Degradation of an appetitive olfactory memory via devaluation of sugar reward is mediated by 5-HT signaling in the honey bee

Lai

Despouy

Sandoz

et al. 2020

Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

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Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) learning induces the devaluation of a preferred food through its pairing with a stimulus inducing internal illness. In invertebrates, it is still unclear how this aversive learning impairs the memories of stimuli that had been associated with the appetitive food prior to its devaluation. Here we studied this phenomenon in the honey bee and characterized its neural underpinnings. We first trained bees to associate an odorant (conditioned stimulus, CS) with appetitive fructose solution (unconditioned stimulus, US) using a Pavlovian olfactory conditioning. We then subjected the bees that learned the association to a CTA training during which the antennal taste of fructose solution was contingent or not to the ingestion of quinine solution, which induces malaise a few hours after ingestion. Only the group experiencing contingent fructose stimulation and quinine-based malaise exhibited a decrease in responses to the fructose and a concomitant decrease in odor-specific retention in tests performed 23 h after the original odor conditioning. Furthermore, injection of dopamine-and serotonin-receptor antagonists after CTA learning revealed that this longterm decrease was mediated by serotonergic signaling as its blockade rescued both the responses to fructose and the odor-specific memory 23 h after conditioning. The impairment of a prior CS memory by subsequent CTA conditioning confirms that bees retrieve a devaluated US representation when presented with the CS. Our findings further highlight the importance of serotonergic signaling in aversive learning in the bee and uncover mechanisms underlying aversive memories induced by internal illness in invertebrates.

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Failure to Find Ethanol‐Induced Conditioned Taste Aversion in Honey Bees (Apis melliferaL.)

Abstract: The honey bees' lack of learned avoidance to EtOH mirrors that seen in human alcoholism. These findings demonstrate the usefulness of honey bees as an insect model for EtOH consumption.

Cited by 22 publications

References 70 publications

Olfactory Learning in the Stingless Bee Melipona eburnea Friese (Apidae: Meliponini)

Olfactory Learning in the Stingless Bee Melipona eburnea Friese (Apidae: Meliponini)

Alcohol intoxication resistance and alcohol dehydrogenase levels differ between the honeybee castes

Degradation of an appetitive olfactory memory via devaluation of sugar reward is mediated by 5-HT signaling in the honey bee

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