Js. Hosler et al., Impairment of olfactory discrimination by blockade of GABA and nitric oxide activity in the honey bee antennal lobes, BEHAV NEURO, 114(3), 2000, pp. 514-525
Honey bees readily associate an odor with sucrose reinforcement, and the re
sponse generalizes to other odors as a function of structural similarity to
the conditioned odor. Recent studies have shown that a portion of odor mem
ory is consolidated in the antennal lobes (AL), where first-order synaptic
processing of sensory information takes place. The AL and/or the sensory af
ferents that project into them show staining patterns for the enzyme nitric
oxide synthase, which catalyzes the release of the gaseous transmitter nit
ric oxide (NO). The results show that pharmacological blockade of NO releas
e impairs olfactory discrimination only when release is blocked before cond
itioning. Blockade of GABAergic transmission disrupts discrimination of sim
ilar but not dissimilar odorants, and does so when the block occurs before
condition or before testing. These results show that GABA and NO regulate t
he specificity of associative olfactory memory in the AL.