Watanabe Hidehiro, Kobayashi Yuko, Sakura Midori, Matsumoto Yukihisa, Mizunami Makoto
Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Zoolog Sci. 2003 Dec;20(12):1447-54. doi: 10.2108/zsj.20.1447.
We established a classical conditioning procedure for the cockroach, Periplaneta americana, by which odors were associated with reward or punishment. Cockroaches underwent differential conditioning trials in which peppermint odor was associated with sucrose solution and vanilla odor was associated with saline solution. Odor preference of cockroaches was tested by allowing them to choose between peppermint and vanilla sources. Cockroaches that had undergone one set of differential conditioning trials exhibited a significantly greater preference for peppermint odor than did untrained cockroaches. Memory formed by three sets of differential conditioning trials, with an inter-trial interval of 5 min, was retained at least 4 days after conditioning. This conditioning procedure was effective even for cockroaches that had been harnessed in plastic tubes. This study shows, for the first time in hemimetaborous insects, that both freely moving and harnessed insects are capable of forming olfactory memory by classical conditioning procedure. This procedure may be useful for future electrophysiological and pharmacological studies aimed at elucidation of neural mechanisms underlying olfactory learning and memory.
我们为美洲大蠊建立了一种经典条件反射程序，通过该程序气味与奖励或惩罚相关联。蟑螂接受了差异条件反射试验，其中薄荷气味与蔗糖溶液相关联，香草气味与盐溶液相关联。通过让蟑螂在薄荷和香草源之间进行选择来测试它们的气味偏好。经历过一组差异条件反射试验的蟑螂比未训练的蟑螂对薄荷气味表现出明显更高的偏好。通过三组差异条件反射试验形成的记忆，试验间隔为5分钟，在条件反射后至少保留4天。即使对于被束缚在塑料管中的蟑螂，这种条件反射程序也是有效的。本研究首次表明，在半变态昆虫中，自由活动和被束缚的昆虫都能够通过经典条件反射程序形成嗅觉记忆。该程序可能对未来旨在阐明嗅觉学习和记忆背后神经机制的电生理和药理学研究有用。
