Perception, Learning and Memory

in Insects (PLMI)

 

Manager: Martin Giurfa

 

 

Aims

 

The objectives of our team are to study cognitive functions such as visual and spatial perception, learning, memory and recall of information. In an approach going from behavior to molecules, we firstly try to understand how individuals can extract pertinent information from their environment when they perceive and learn and secondly to identify the neuronal networks and processes involved in these functions.
The ants and the honeybees are the model systems of the PLMI team. As all animal organisms, insects display behavioral plasticity, all the more developed since they live in animal societies, as honeybees and ants do.

 

Our behavioral approach spreads from ant navigation in field studies to leaning and memory in harnessed honeybees:

 

Work strategy of the PLMI team: from ant navigation to visual recognition in

free-flying bee and olfactory/visual/tactile learning in harnessed honeybee. 

This latter situation (right) is compatible with invasive techniques.

 

 

The honeybee brain, anatomically well described and easily accessible, is well suited to “on-line” analyses of structures and networks functioning.

 

Nervous activation of antennal lobes induced by olfactory perception or olfactory learning,

revealed by optical imaging (left); dorsal view of the antennal lobe showing activation of

two specific sets of olfactory glomeruli in response to two different odours (right).

The recent honyebee genome sequencing opens the way to molecular studies of olfactory perception and olfactory learning.     Patch-clamp recording of acetylcholine- (ACh-) induced current (above) from cultured-antennal lobe neuron. RNA interference (RNAi) against nicotinic a subunit (bottom left).The effects of injection are studied on the nicotinic current and on a subunit expression by the neuron (bottom right)

The research of the team is focused on the following functions:

• Vision and visual and spatial learning

• Olfactory perception and olfactory learning

• Honeybee taste

 

Different thematic are developed:

 

• Spatial cognition in ant

• The role of the mushroom bodies in non-elemental learning

• Role of the nicotinic receptors in olfactory learning and memory

• Inhibitory neurotransmission in the honeybee

• Cellular and molecular bases of long-term olfactory memory

• Role of calcium in olfactory long-term memory formation

• Modulation of learning by a social signal

 

 

Composition of the team

 

Researchers	Catherine Armengaud Guy Beugnon Jean-Marc Devaud Monique Gauthier Martin Giurfa Guillaume Isabel Valérie Raymond	Assistant professor Research director Assistant professor Professor Professor Assistant professor Assistant professor
Technical staff	Gabriela de Brito Sanchez Lucie Hotier Isabelle Massou	Research engineer Technician Research engineer
Post-doctoral fellows
PhD students	Fabien Démares Damien Lefer Thierry Louis Theo Rolla Paula Mota Stevanus Rio Tedjakumala Elodie Urlacher Antoine Wystrach
M2R	Crattelet Cindy Perez Margot