Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
Dev Neurobiol. 2012 Feb;72(2):153-66. doi: 10.1002/dneu.20929.
Enriched environmental conditions induce neuroanatomical plasticity in a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate species. We explored the molecular processes associated with experience-induced plasticity, using naturally occurring foraging behavior in adult worker honey bees (Apis mellifera). In honey bees, the mushroom bodies exhibit neuroanatomical plasticity that is dependent on accumulated foraging experience. To investigate molecular processes associated with foraging experience, we performed a time-course microarray study to examine gene expression changes in the mushroom bodies as a function of days foraged. We found almost 500 genes that were regulated by duration of foraging experience. Bioinformatic analyses of these genes suggest that foraging experience is associated with multiple molecular processes in the mushroom bodies, including some that may contribute directly to neuropil growth, and others that could potentially protect the brain from the effects of aging and physiological stress.
丰富的环境条件会在各种脊椎动物和无脊椎动物物种中诱导神经解剖可塑性。我们使用成年工蜂（Apis mellifera）中自然发生的觅食行为来探索与经验诱导可塑性相关的分子过程。在蜜蜂中，蘑菇体表现出依赖于积累的觅食经验的神经解剖可塑性。为了研究与觅食经验相关的分子过程，我们进行了时间过程微阵列研究，以检查蘑菇体中基因表达随觅食天数的变化。我们发现了近 500 个受觅食经验持续时间调节的基因。对这些基因的生物信息学分析表明，觅食经验与蘑菇体中的多个分子过程有关，包括一些可能直接有助于神经突生长的过程，以及其他可能潜在地保护大脑免受衰老和生理压力影响的过程。
