BEHAVIORAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS OF OLFACTION

蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）将用于研究行为和 参与产生神经表征的生理机制， 嗅觉系统 脊椎动物的嗅觉系统 无脊椎动物，如蜜蜂，结构类似于分布式 处理器. 这些系统的解剖特征类似于 模式识别和记忆的神经网络模型， 投入/产出关系作为中间水平的函数， 在已被并行激活的元素之间进行处理。 最近 嗅觉系统的模型已经确定了时间波动， 气味信号、模式识别和联想记忆， 通过早期嗅觉处理提取的重要特征。 因此，由于脊椎动物和 无脊椎动物，使用无脊椎动物作为模型系统将 提供了可推广的见解如何神经表征在 产生了多种动物的嗅觉系统。 蜜蜂 非常适合行为学、药理学 和生理学研究的建议。 工人们学会对花卉做出反应 气味和信息素。 因此，提出的机制 对于昆虫中的信息素处理，可以测试其适用性， 花香处理。 行为实验将涉及 使工蜂对一种气味或两种气味的混合物作出反应 或更多的气味。 随后的测试将被设计为评估 解释以下过程的机制：（1）为什么一种气味剂 掩盖或未能掩盖另一个;（2）神经系统的相互作用 气味和味道的表征;（3）一种气味如何阻止 在第一个已经与第二个相关联之后学习第二个。 甜味剂如蔗糖。 药理学实验被提议为 研究嗅叶抑制性加工在产生 混合和时间处理现象。 几种不同的GABA 将评估激动剂和拮抗剂，包括那些相互作用 与GABA相关的苯二氮结合位点。

The honey bee (Apis mellifera) will be used to study behavioral and physiological mechanisms involved in generating neural representations in the olfactory system. The olfactory systems of both vertebrates and invertebrates, such as the honey bee, are structured like distributed processors. Anatomical features of these systems resemble features of neural network models of pattern recognition and memory, which compute input/output relationships as a function of intermediate levels of processing among elements that have been activated in parallel. Recent models of olfactory systems have identified temporal fluctuation in the odor signal, pattern recognition, and associative memory as potentially important features that are extracted by early olfactory processing. Therefore, because of the anatomical similarities between vertebrates and invertebrates, use of an invertebrate animal as a model system will provide generalizable insights into how neural representations in the olfactory systems of a wide variety of animals are generated. Honey bees are ideally suited for the combination of behavioral, pharmacological, and physiological studies proposed. Workers learn to respond to floral odorants and pheromones in novels ways. Therefore, mechanisms proposed for pheromone processing in insects can be tested for applicability to floral odorant processing. Behavioral experiments will involve conditioning worker bees to respond to an odorant or to mixtures of two or more odorants. Subsequent test will be designed to evaluate mechanisms that explain the following processes: (1) why one odorant overshadows or fails to overshadow another; (2) interaction of neural representations for odorants and tastes; (3) how one odorant can block learning about a second after the first has been associated with a reinforcer such as sucrose. Pharmacological experiments are proposed to study the role of olfactory lobe inhibitory processing in generating mixture and temporal processing phenomena. Several different GABA agonists and antagonists will be evaluated, including those that interact with GABA-associated benzodiazepine binding sites.