PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

The company you keep shapes what you learn

Research from Universities of Leicester, Sussex and Cambridge into desert locusts discovers how your environment shapes your thinking

2013-11-21
(Press-News.org) Contact information: Dr. Swidbert Ott
so120@le.ac.uk
44-011-625-23479
University of Leicester
The company you keep shapes what you learn Research from Universities of Leicester, Sussex and Cambridge into desert locusts discovers how your environment shapes your thinking

A team of scientists has shown how the environment shapes learning and memory by training locusts like Pavlov's dog to associate different smells with reward or punishment.

Desert locusts are notorious for their devastating swarms. However, they do not always live in swarms — they switch between a lone living 'solitary phase' and a swarming 'gregarious' phase. The two phases differ profoundly in looks, behaviour and in their life style.

The new research from the Universities of Leicester, Sussex and Cambridge examines how locusts associate odours with nutritious or toxic food. The research, published in the journal Current Biology, was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Champalimaud Foundation, The Royal Society, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Leverhulme Trust.

Solitary locusts rely on camouflage to evade predators, and they avoid eating toxic plants; but gregarious locusts eat these plants to 'impregnate' themselves with toxins to deter predators. The transformation to gregarious behaviour, which happens when solitary locusts are forced together into a crowd, is complete within a few hours.

Dr Swidbert Ott from the University of Leicester said: "Locusts should consider toxic food 'bad' while they live alone but 'good' when they are in a swarm, which made us wonder, how do swarming locusts learn that 'bad is the new good'?"

Such research is important because it provides new insights into how animals can quickly switch between very different life styles that are adapted to different environments.

"Our research shows how animals that undergo a profound transformation in their life style also adapt their learning and memory capabilities to cope with the new environment in which they find themselves," says Dr Jeremy Niven from the University of Sussex.

Dr Patrício Simões, who carried out the experiments as part of his doctoral study at the University of Cambridge and the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, explains: "When we presented solitary locusts with an unfamiliar odour together with toxic food, they assigned it an aversive ('bad') value. But if the locust is in a crowd and starting to change towards gregarious, it assigns an appetitive ('good') value to the same odour. Ecologically, this makes sense because, being a gregarious locust, it should find and eat toxic plants to defend itself against predators.

"Then we asked, if a solitary locust has already learned about an odour and then it finds itself in a crowd, what would happen to its memories? Can it switch the value that it has assigned to the odour, or more precisely, does crowding change the value of a previous memory from aversive to appetitive?

We found that locusts cannot do this: they are stuck with the value of their already acquired memories. However, strikingly we found that locusts in this transitional period also cannot form any new aversive memories, while they can still form new appetitive memories.

"We then simulated the context in which the switch to swarming behaviour takes place in the field. We show that this simple, selective block of aversion learning enables the locusts to effectively re-train themselves to learn that the same odour that indicated 'bad' now indicates 'good'."

As Dr. Ott explains: "Desert locusts aggregate into swarms when they run out of food — the crowding is driven by hunger and competition for the last few plants in the desert. They are pretty desperate when they transform into the gregarious phase, so they will give the toxic plants another try. And because they can no longer form aversive memories, any food is now rewarding and they form the new 'correct' appetitive memory with the odour. This is how they re-train themselves to eat the toxic plants. It would be great to be able to do this experiment in the field but it would be quite tricky."

Dr Niven adds: "Because newly crowded locusts don't form memories about toxins they ingest, all they remember is the pleasant side of what they ate, and they ignore the toxin. In this way, a smell previously associated with a toxin can become associated with a pleasant experience.

"The changes in learning and memory we're proposing don't require the locusts to understand what's happening to them — they just have to feed and form associations."

The study recalls the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov who famously studied dogs salivating in anticipation of food. Pavlov rang a bell every time he presented the dog with food. After a few 'training sessions' ringing the bell alone was sufficient to make the dog salivate, as it had come to associate the sound of the bell with getting food.

The scientists trained the locusts just like Pavlov trained his dog, except that the unfamiliar smell replaces the bell in Pavlov's experiments: they gently blew vanilla or lemon odour at the restrained locust, while they spoon-fed it with artificial food.

After training, the researchers 'asked' the locust: do you prefer vanilla odour or lemon odour. "We walk the locust on a rod that bifurcates into two arms: one arm has lemon odour, the other vanilla. So the locust has to make up its mind: do I go to vanilla or to lemon. Without training, locusts like vanilla more than lemon. But if you pair nutritious food with lemon during the training, they will go to lemon. And if you train solitary locusts with toxic food and vanilla, they will also go to lemon."

The new results show how brains do not solve problems 'in a vacuum' but in interaction with the environment.

"Simply crowding a locust won't change its mind about the odour being 'bad'," the authors say: "We first thought, this is pretty daft, the locust should now like the odour. But even we humans struggle to forget food poisoning although we know the next meal is fine. The locusts do not operate in a vacuum, they live in the desert. And in the circumstances that they need to re-evaluate the 'meaning' of an odour, it takes only a simple modification of the rules by which they learn: turn off learning 'bad' but keep learning 'good', and the locust can retrain itself.

"So a little brain with simple rules goes a long way if you let it interact with the environment."



INFORMATION:



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Growth more stunted in lower-income youth with kidney disease

2013-11-21
Growth more stunted in lower-income youth with kidney disease NIH-funded study suggests increasing treatment adherence may help Even with more prescriptions for growth hormone, children and adolescents with chronic ...

Targets of anticancer drugs have broader functions than what their name suggests

2013-11-21
Targets of anticancer drugs have broader functions than what their name suggests Findings have implications for oncology, diabetes drug development PHILADELPHIA - Drugs that inhibit the activity of enzymes called histone deacetylases ...

2 human proteins found to affect how 'jumping gene' gets around

2013-11-21
2 human proteins found to affect how 'jumping gene' gets around Using a new method to catch elusive "jumping genes" in the act, researchers have found two human proteins that are used by one type of DNA to replicate itself and move from place to place. The discovery, ...

Follow the genes: Yale team finds clues to origin of autism

2013-11-21
Follow the genes: Yale team finds clues to origin of autism Finding major new clues to the origins of autism, a Yale-led team of researchers has pinpointed which cell types and regions of the developing human brain are affected by gene mutations linked to autism. ...

UT Dallas study: Initial success for new tinnitus treatment

2013-11-21
UT Dallas study: Initial success for new tinnitus treatment UT Dallas researchers have demonstrated that treating tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, using vagus nerve stimulation-tone therapy is safe and brought significant improvement to some of the participants ...

Intestinal bacteria influence food transit through the gut

2013-11-21
Intestinal bacteria influence food transit through the gut Food transit through the small intestine affects the body's absorption of nutrients and, consequently, our health. The discovery that food transit time is regulated by a hormone indicates new ways to ...

Attractants prevent nerve cell migration

2013-11-21
Attractants prevent nerve cell migration Researchers from Bonn University decode a roadblock to nerve cell transplantation A vision is to implant nerve precursor cells in the diseased brains of patients with Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, whereby ...

Playing computer games makes brains feel and think alike

2013-11-21
Playing computer games makes brains feel and think alike It's well known that people who communicate face-to-face will start to imitate each other. People adopt each other's poses and gestures, much like infectious yawning. What is less ...

New publication studies urban environments of Manchester from a qualitative perspective

2013-11-21
New publication studies urban environments of Manchester from a qualitative perspective Dr Alexander Bridger, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Huddersfield, has published a new paper that explores ways to qualitatively study the urban environments ...

Captive breeding for thousands of years has impaired olfactory functions in silkmoths

2013-11-21
Captive breeding for thousands of years has impaired olfactory functions in silkmoths Domesticated silkmoths Bombyx mori have a much more limited perception of environmental odors compared to their wild relatives; The extremely sensitive olfactory ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Thirty-year mystery of dissonance in the “ringing” of black holes explained

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome

UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership

New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll

Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025

Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials

New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age

Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker

Chips off the old block

Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19

Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity

State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections

Young adults drive historic decline in smoking

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development

This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer's disease and identify a therapeutic candidate

Coalition of Autism Scientists critiques US Department of Health and Human Services Autism Research Initiative

Structure dictates effectiveness, safety in nanomedicine

[Press-News.org] The company you keep shapes what you learn
Research from Universities of Leicester, Sussex and Cambridge into desert locusts discovers how your environment shapes your thinking