Dacher M, Gauthier M
Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale UMR-CNRS 5169 Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, Bât 4R3, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse Cedex 09, France.
Physiol Behav. 2008 Sep 3;95(1-2):200-7. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2008.05.019. Epub 2008 Jun 3.
Restrained worker honey bees (Apis mellifera) are one of the main models for the comparative study of learning and memory processes. Bees easily learn to associate a sucrose reward to antennal tactile scanning of a small metal plate (associative learning). Their proboscis extension response can also be habituated through repeated sucrose stimulations (non-associative learning). We studied the role of nitric oxide synthase and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in these two forms of learning. The nicotinic antagonist MLA or the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor l-NAME impaired the formation of tactile associative long-term memory that specifically occurs during multiple-trial training; however these drugs had no effect on single-trial training. None of the drugs affected retrieval processes. These pharmacological results are consistent with data previously obtained with olfactory conditioning and indicate that MLA-sensitive nicotinic receptors and NO-synthase are specifically involved in long-term memory. MLA and l-NAME both reduced the number of trials required for habituation to occur. This result suggests that a reduction of cholinergic nicotinic neurotransmission promotes PER habituation in the honey bee.
被限制活动的工蜂（意大利蜜蜂）是学习和记忆过程比较研究的主要模型之一。蜜蜂很容易学会将蔗糖奖励与对小金属板的触角触觉扫描联系起来（联想学习）。它们的喙伸展反应也可以通过反复的蔗糖刺激而习惯化（非联想学习）。我们研究了一氧化氮合酶和烟碱型乙酰胆碱受体在这两种学习形式中的作用。烟碱拮抗剂甲基牛扁亭碱（MLA）或一氧化氮合酶抑制剂L-硝基精氨酸甲酯（l-NAME）损害了在多次试验训练期间特异性发生的触觉联想长期记忆的形成；然而，这些药物对单次试验训练没有影响。这些药物均不影响记忆提取过程。这些药理学结果与先前通过嗅觉条件反射获得的数据一致，并表明对MLA敏感的烟碱型受体和一氧化氮合酶特别参与长期记忆。MLA和l-NAME都减少了习惯化发生所需的试验次数。这一结果表明，胆碱能烟碱神经传递的减少促进了蜜蜂的喙伸展反应习惯化。
