Login  |   Register   |   Submit Article   |   Contact Us   |   My Frontiers   |   Home

Original Research Article
Associative and non-associative plasticity in Kenyon cells of the honeybee mushroom body

1  Neurobiologie, Universität Konstanz, Germany
2  Institut für Neurobiologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany


The insect mushroom bodies are higher-order brain centers and critical for odor learning. We investigated experience dependent plasticity of their intrinsic neurons, the Kenyon cells. Using calcium imaging, we recorded Kenyon cell responses and investigated non-associative plasticity by applying repeated odor stimuli. Associative plasticity was examined by performing appetitive odor learning experiments. Olfactory, gustatory and tactile antennal stimuli evoked phasic calcium transients in sparse ensembles of responding Kenyon cells. Repeated stimulation with an odor led to a decrease in Kenyon cells’ response strength. The pairing of an odor (CS) with a sucrose reward (US) induced a prolongation of Kenyon cell responses. After conditioning, Kenyon cell responses to a rewarded odor (CS+) recovered from repetition-induced decrease, while the responses to a non-rewarded odor (CS-) decreased further. The spatio-temporal pattern of activated Kenyon cells changed for both odors when compared with the response before conditioning but the change was stronger for the CS-. These results demonstrate that Kenyon cell responses are subject to non-associative plasticity during odor repetition and undergo associative plasticity after appetitive odor learning.

Keywords: odor learning, mushroom body, neural plasticity, insect, honeybee, calcium imaging

Citation: Szyszka P, Galkin A and Menzel R (2008) Associative and non-associative plasticity in Kenyon cells of the honeybee mushroom body. Front. Syst. Neurosci. (2008) 2:3. doi:10.3389/neuro.06.003.2008

Received: 15 February 2008; paper pending published: 11 April 2008; accepted: 10 June 2008; published online: 24 June 2008.

Edited by: 
Zachary F. Mainen, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA

Reviewed by: 
Glenn Turner, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA

Copyright: © 2008 Szyszka, Galkin and Menzel. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.

*Correspondence: Paul Szyszka, Neurobiologie, Universität Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany. e-mail: paul.szyszka@uni-konstanz.de
Viewing Options
    Abstract
    Full Text
    PDF
Other articles by authors
     On PubMed

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Article Analytics

Average Rating: 0/10  (0 votes)
Login to rate this title