Novelty detection in early olfactory processing of the honey bee, Apis mellifera

Animals are constantly bombarded with stimuli, which presents a fundamental problem of sorting among pervasive uninformative stimuli and novel, possibly meaningful stimuli. We evaluated novelty detection behaviorally in honey bees as they position their antennae differentially in an air stream carry...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2022-03, Vol.17 (3), p.e0265009-e0265009
Main Authors: Lei, Hong, Haney, Seth, Jernigan, Christopher M, Guo, Xiaojiao, Cook, Chelsea N, Bazhenov, Maxim, Smith, Brian H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Animals
Antennae
Antennal lobe
Apis mellifera
Bees
Biology and Life Sciences
Brain
Engineering and Technology
Familiarity
Geospatial data
Honey
Honeybee
Information processing
Life sciences
Medicine and Health Sciences
Memory
Neurons
Neurons - physiology
Neurosciences
Odor
Odorants
Odors
Rhinencephalon
Sensory evaluation
Sensory integration
Smell - physiology
Social Sciences
Stimuli
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Summary:Animals are constantly bombarded with stimuli, which presents a fundamental problem of sorting among pervasive uninformative stimuli and novel, possibly meaningful stimuli. We evaluated novelty detection behaviorally in honey bees as they position their antennae differentially in an air stream carrying familiar or novel odors. We then characterized neuronal responses to familiar and novel odors in the first synaptic integration center in the brain-the antennal lobes. We found that the neurons that exhibited stronger initial responses to the odor that was to be familiarized are the same units that later distinguish familiar and novel odors, independently of chemical identities. These units, including both tentative projection neurons and local neurons, showed a decreased response to the familiar odor but an increased response to the novel odor. Our results suggest that the antennal lobe may represent familiarity or novelty to an odor stimulus in addition to its chemical identity code. Therefore, the mechanisms for novelty detection may be present in early sensory processing, either as a result of local synaptic interaction or via feedback from higher brain centers.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0265009