Descripción
- Doctoral Thesis
The role of intensity, temporal synchrony, and biogenic amines for unimodal and multimodal integration during learning and memory of honey bees and bumble bees Tesis
Perfil
Tutor
- Riveros Rivera, André Josafat Persona
Thesis author
- Gil-Guevara, Oswaldo
Resumen
- This PhD thesis investigates the interplay between bimodal signal integration, multisensory processing, and the role of biogenic amines in learning and memory tasks of honey bees and bumble bees. The three chapters provide valuable insights into these interconnected concepts and on the mechanisms underlying bee’s behaviour. The first chapter focuses on the dependency of intensity, for the integration of bimodal signals during learning and memory tasks. My findings demonstrate that successful integration of multimodal signals in honey bees during learning and memory tasks is influenced by the intensity levels of their individual components. This integration follows the principle of inverse effectiveness, akin to observations in vertebrates, suggesting comparable underlying neuronal computations. The second chapter explored the interaction between synchronicity, temporal order and intensity during learning and memory in honey bees. My results support an interaction between the temporal rule and inverse effectiveness principles, suggesting that bees exhibit enhanced perceptual processing when exposed to synchronous bimodal stimuli, particularly at lower levels. Additionally, I found that alternate temporal orders of asynchronous stimuli affected performance only at low intensities. Finally, in chapter 3 I investigated the effects of biogenic amines on unimodal and bimodal PER conditioning in bumble bees expanding our understanding of how octopamine (OA) and dopamine (DA) work in tandem to modulate appetitive learning and memory. My results suggest that the influence of octopamine (OA) and dopamine (DA) administration on learning and memory processes is concentration-dependent and exhibits distinct patterns. Such patterns agree with the well known role of OA as modulator of olfactory and visual learning and including its modulatory role in bimodal learning. While in insects DA is believed to modulate aversive learning here my results suggest an previously unknown inhibitory role during olfactory, visual and bimodal appetitive learning. These results potentially open new avenues of research into the rewarding systems in bees, and insects in general, allowing direct comparisons with vertebrates. Overall, the striking similarities observed between vertebrates and insects regarding multimodal integration principles and the involvement of biogenic amines underscore the universality of these mechanisms across different taxa. These findings contribute to our broader understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying learning and memory processes, emphasizing the adaptive strategies employed by animals in their foraging behaviour involving multiple modalities.
fecha de publicación
- agosto 20, 2024 12:44 p. m.