RELATIONS BETWEEN OPERANT BEHAVIOR AND PROTEOMIC ANALYSIS IN BEES (Melipona quadrifasciata)

• Grant number: 12/11004-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2012
• End date: September 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Deisy das Graças de Souza
• Grantee: Antonio Mauricio Moreno
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 08/57705-8 - Institute for the Study of Behavior, Cognition and Teaching, AP.TEM

Abstract

Behavioral analysis is mainly concerned with the way an organism's behavior is related to the environment, whereas Neuroscience is concerned with the way an organism is modified as a consequence of learning. A comprehensive science of behavior should be interested in both matters, as much as in the relations between these matters. Several studies have demonstrated classical conditioning in bees. Also, research on discriminative learning has demonstrated that bees are capable of learning simple and conditional discriminations. These outcomes indicate bees as a promising animal model for studying the mechanisms involved in memory consolidation. Such process involves protein synthesis, which is more appropriately described by using proteomic techniques. To date, only one study investigated the molecular basis of discriminative learning by using proteomic techniques. The main objective of the present project is the establishment of two types of learning in bees: a) simple discrimination learning with the requirement of a motor response (lever pressing response) and b) only a motor response (lever pressing response) and to compare brain proteomes resulting from these two experimental conditions. In addition, the present project proposes the investigation of the relation between amount of training and expression of brain proteins, by comparing results from two conditions (8 hours of training versus 16 hours of training), as much as the relation between time interval from the start of the procedure and brain dissection and the expression of brain proteins, also by comparing results from two experimental conditions (8 hours interval versus 32 hours interval).