University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Experience-Dependent Plasticity in the Mushroom Bodies of the Honey Bee Brain

Ismail, Nyla

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Description

Title
Experience-Dependent Plasticity in the Mushroom Bodies of the Honey Bee Brain
Author(s)
Ismail, Nyla
Issue Date
2008
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Robinson, Gene E.
Department of Study
Neuroscience
Discipline
Neuroscience
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Biology, Neuroscience
Language
eng
Abstract
I am interested in the mechanisms that modify brain structure in response to experience. The model organism under study is Apis mellifera, the European honey bee. The honey bee has a rich behavioral repertoire that can easily be studied both in the laboratory and under natural conditions. The goal of these projects is to understand how a worker bees' experience as a forager alters its brain structure and gene expression. My focus is the cholinergic inputs that travel from the antennal lobes to the mushroom bodies. Previous work has shown that forager bees have an increase in volume of the neuropil associated with the mushroom bodies, a region of the insect brain implicated in learning, memory, and multimodal sensory integration. To study this phenomenon, I have developed an assay to control foraging experience in the lab while incorporating the effects of social and environmental conditions on the brain. Using this method, I determined the influence of metabotropic muscarinic cholinergic receptors in experience-dependent brain plasticity in the honey bee using neuroanatomical methods and genomic tools (microarrays).
Graduation Semester
2008
Type of Resource
text
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/82520

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