REU: Honey Bee Neurobiology and Behavior Program

9322202 Fahrbach该奖项为伊利诺伊大学继续一个成功的REU项目提供支持。夏季研究项目将集中在蜜蜂的行为和神经解剖学上。学生将有机会将引人入胜的实地考察与现代神经解剖学技术相结合。学生培训将是一个三重过程。首先，将讲授昆虫神经系统的结构和功能；昆虫变态和神经发育的激素调节；以及动物行为的实验研究。其次，学生将接受安全处理蜜蜂群体和观察蜜蜂行为的实践培训，并提供充足的机会练习这些新技能。第三，学生将接受组织学技术的实验室指导，以进行蜜蜂神经系统的光镜研究，包括体视学的许多方面。然后，学生将被分成两个小组，每组三名学生。然后，这些团队将开展一个研究项目，研究已知年龄和行为状态的蜜蜂的大脑组织、神经细胞数量、基因表达或荷尔蒙反应等方面的问题。这个项目的目标是向已经对行为生物学感兴趣的学生介绍群居昆虫的价值，作为研究复杂行为的神经生物学的模型，包括学习和记忆。该项目代表了伊利诺伊大学香槟分校昆虫学系和神经科学项目两个实验室之间正在进行的合作的延伸。它的基地将设在伊利诺伊大学蜜蜂研究设施和昆虫学系的联合PIS实验室。这种不同寻常的实地和实验室研究环境的结合，加上共同PIs的不同但互补的背景，将为本科生提供丰富的暑期研究经验。目前建议的项目反映了过去以同一主题为中心的REU站点项目的成功(1992年夏季提供)，新的重点是研究团队合作，作为帮助学生完成有意义的研究项目的一种手段。***

9322202 Fahrbach This award provides support to the University of Illinois to continue a successful REU program. Summer research programs will be focused on the behavior and neuroanatomy of honey bees. Students will have the opportunity to combine compelling fieldwork with modern neuroanatomical techniques. Student training will be a three-fold process. First, lectures will be given on the structure and function of the insect nervous system; the hormonal regulation of insect metamorphosis and neural development; and the experimental study of animal behavior. Second, students will receive practical training in the safe handling of colonies of honey bees and in observation of honey bee behavior, with ample opportunity provided to practice these new skills. Third, students will receive laboratory instruction in histological techniques for the light microscopic study of the honey bee nervous system, including many aspects of stereology. Students will then be divided into two teams of three students each. These teams will then carry out a research project in which an aspect of brain organization, nerve cell number, gene expression, or hormonal responsiveness, etc. is studied in bees of known age and behavioral status. The goal of this project is to introduce students who already have an interest in behavioral biology to the value of social insects as models for the study of the neurobiology of complex behavior, including learning and memory. This project represents an extension of an ongoing collaboration between two laboratories in the Department of Entomology and the Neuroscience Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It will be based in the University of Illinois Bee Research Facility and in the co-PIs laboratories in the Department of Entomology. This unusual combination of field and laboratory research environments coupled with the different but complementary backgrounds of the co-PIs will provide undergraduates with a rich summer research experience. The program currently proposed reflects the success of a past REU Site program centered around the same theme (offered Summer 1992), with a new emphasis on research teamwork as a means of helping students complete meaningful research projects. ***