Research Centre on Animal Cognition, Center for Integrative Biology, CNRS, University of Toulouse, 118 route de Narbonne, F-31062, Toulouse cedex 09, France.
Laboratory Evolution Genomes Behavior and Ecology, CNRS, Univ Paris-Sud, IRD, University Paris Saclay, F-91198, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 10;7(1):12903. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-12631-w.
Free-flying honeybees exhibit remarkable cognitive capacities but the neural underpinnings of these capacities cannot be studied in flying insects. Conversely, immobilized bees are accessible to neurobiological investigation but display poor visual learning. To overcome this limitation, we aimed at establishing a controlled visual environment in which tethered bees walking on a spherical treadmill learn to discriminate visual stimuli video projected in front of them. Freely flying bees trained to walk into a miniature Y-maze displaying these stimuli in a dark environment learned the visual discrimination efficiently when one of them (CS+) was paired with sucrose and the other with quinine solution (CS-). Adapting this discrimination to the treadmill paradigm with a tethered, walking bee was successful as bees exhibited robust discrimination and preferred the CS+ to the CS- after training. As learning was better in the maze, movement freedom, active vision and behavioral context might be important for visual learning. The nature of the punishment associated with the CS- also affects learning as quinine and distilled water enhanced the proportion of learners. Thus, visual learning is amenable to a controlled environment in which tethered bees learn visual stimuli, a result that is important for future neurobiological studies in virtual reality.
自由飞行的蜜蜂表现出非凡的认知能力，但这些能力的神经基础无法在飞行昆虫中进行研究。相反，固定的蜜蜂可以进行神经生物学研究，但它们的视觉学习能力较差。为了克服这一限制，我们旨在建立一个受控的视觉环境，使被束缚的蜜蜂在一个球形跑步机上行走，并学会区分在它们面前视频投影的视觉刺激。经过训练，在黑暗环境中走进一个微型 Y 形迷宫的自由飞行蜜蜂，当其中一个刺激（CS+）与蔗糖配对，而另一个刺激（CS-）与奎宁溶液配对时，能够有效地进行视觉辨别。当被束缚、行走的蜜蜂适应跑步机范式时，这种辨别也取得了成功，因为蜜蜂在训练后表现出强烈的辨别能力，并更喜欢 CS+而不是 CS-。由于在迷宫中的学习效果更好，运动自由度、主动视觉和行为背景可能对视觉学习很重要。与 CS-相关的惩罚性质也会影响学习，因为奎宁和蒸馏水会增加学习者的比例。因此，视觉学习可以适应受控环境，使被束缚的蜜蜂学会辨别视觉刺激，这对于虚拟现实中的神经生物学研究很重要。
