Scientists have discovered that bees, much like humans, lose their memory and cognitive ability as they age.
Two ASU researchers and scientists at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences together published their findings Oct. 19 in the open access journal Public Library of Science ONE.
“What we tried to do with this paper was to ask if aging [in bees] was affecting many brain functions at the same time, because that’s something we know from people,” said Gro Amdam, associate professor at ASU’s School of Life Sciences on the Tempe campus.
Their research proved that older bees not only tend to become unable to remember that a condition has changed, but also that they become unable to ignore environmental conditions that have become irrelevant, a concept that psychologists call “extinction learning” in humans.
“This proves that they can form memories the same way that mammals can and that they have the same capabilities of learning,” said Nicholas Baker, a research technologist at ASU’s School of Life Sciences.
The scientists made this discovery through two experiments. They used mature bees, those that have been flying for about one week and are roughly three weeks into their month-long lifespan; and old bees, those nearing two weeks of flying and four weeks of life.
In the first experiment conducted in a lab, old bees showed what the scientists had previously discovered, that they become unable to learn new things and forgot that a condition in their environment changed.
This was proven when old bees showed a tendency to continue to respond to an odor that was previously associated with a sugar reward, but after they had learned that the sugar was no longer there.
Amdam equated this with humans continually returning to a store to buy a product that they have been told is no longer available.
In the second experiment, conducted outdoors in Norway, the bees were moved around between three boxes with enough time between the moves for them to learn that each box was a new home and to disassociate themselves with the previous boxes.
Scientists then removed the third home and left the bees to choose between one of the previous homes and two alternative unused homes, all with equal conditions and none more preferential than any other.
They found that some older bees chose to live in a home they had lived in before, the home that younger bees did not choose because they had learned that it was irrelevant.
This showed the scientists that the bees not only form memories like humans, but they can also become deficient in extinction learning. Much like older humans, the bees became unable to learn something new and to forget something that had become incorrect.
“You can have old people escape institutions because they still think that they live somewhere else,” Amdam said, comparing the brain functions of each species. “Forgetting something that isn’t valid anymore is a difficult task for older people.”
These findings could lead to a breakthrough in scientists’ understanding of human brain function and memory formation.
“We can take bees as a superficial model rather than mammals to study different learning paradigms,” Baker said.
Scientists now know that brain function and memory formation is very similar in humans and bees, so they can look to bees to better understand humans.
Reach the reporter at svaltier@asu.edu
