Research Centre on Animal Cognition, Center for Integrative Biology, CNRS, University of Toulouse, 118 route de Narbonne, F-31062, Toulouse, Cedex 09, France.
Department of Biology, University of Florence, Via Madonna del Piano, 6, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.
Commun Biol. 2020 Aug 17;3(1):447. doi: 10.1038/s42003-020-01183-x.
Since their discovery in insects, pheromones are considered as ubiquitous and stereotyped chemical messengers acting in intraspecific animal communication. Here we studied the effect of pheromones in a different context as we investigated their capacity to induce persistent modulations of associative learning and memory. We used honey bees, Apis mellifera, and combined olfactory conditioning and pheromone preexposure with disruption of neural activity and two-photon imaging of olfactory brain circuits, to characterize the effect of pheromones on olfactory learning and memory. Geraniol, an attractive pheromone component, and 2-heptanone, an aversive pheromone, improved and impaired, respectively, olfactory learning and memory via a durable modulation of appetitive motivation, which left odor processing unaffected. Consistently, interfering with aminergic circuits mediating appetitive motivation rescued or diminished the cognitive effects induced by pheromone components. We thus show that these chemical messengers act as important modulators of motivational processes and influence thereby animal cognition.
自从在昆虫中发现信息素以来，它们被认为是无处不在的、刻板的化学信使，在种内动物通讯中发挥作用。在这里，我们研究了信息素在不同背景下的作用，因为我们调查了它们诱导持久的联想学习和记忆调节的能力。我们使用了蜜蜂（Apis mellifera），并将嗅觉条件反射和信息素预暴露与神经活动的破坏以及嗅觉大脑回路的双光子成像相结合，以表征信息素对嗅觉学习和记忆的影响。香叶醇是一种有吸引力的信息素成分，而 2-庚酮是一种令人厌恶的信息素，分别通过持久调节食欲动机来改善和损害嗅觉学习和记忆，而不影响气味处理。一致地，干扰介导食欲动机的胺能回路挽救或减少了信息素成分引起的认知效应。因此，我们表明这些化学信使作为重要的动机过程调节剂起作用，并由此影响动物认知。
