虽然与年龄相关的下降的神经基础已经被广泛研究,1,2,3少是已知的关于在成年前阶段的神经功能的变化。成人神经可塑性可能是社会昆虫年龄多伦理的关键因素,其中个人随着年龄的增长而执行不同的任务,并以年龄依赖性的方式分工。4,5,6,7,8,9主要,工人从护理工作过渡到觅食工作,5,10变得更具侵略性,随着年龄的增长,更容易显示警报行为11,12,13,14,15,16。虽然尚不清楚这些行为动力学是如何神经调节的,它们可以部分地由行为相关污名的显著性改变产生.4,6,7这里,我们调查了在克隆突袭者蚂蚁(Ooceraeabiroi)中警报信息素通信的背景下,触角叶(AL)中的气味编码如何随年龄变化.17类似于其他社会性昆虫,11,12,16只年长的蚂蚁对警报信息素的反应更快,危险的化学信号.使用全AL钙成像,18然后,我们绘制了五种普通气味剂和两种警报信息素的气味表示图。警报信息素在所有年龄段都稀疏地表示。然而,个体肾小球内的警报信息素反应随年龄而变化,增加或减少。随着年龄的增长,只有两个肾小球对警报信息素敏感,同时对一般气味剂脱敏。我们的结果表明,老年蚂蚁对警报信息素的反应增强是通过这两个核心肾小球的敏感性增加而发生的。说明感官调节在社会昆虫分工和年龄相关的行为可塑性中的重要性。
While the neural basis of age-related decline has been extensively studied,1,2,3 less is known about changes in neural function during the pre-senescent stages of adulthood. Adult neural plasticity is likely a key factor in social insect age polyethism, where individuals perform different tasks as they age and divide labor in an age-dependent manner.4,5,6,7,8,9 Primarily, workers transition from nursing to foraging tasks,5,10 become more aggressive, and more readily display alarm behavior11,12,13,14,15,16 as they get older. While it is unknown how these behavioral dynamics are neurally regulated, they could partially be generated by altered salience of behaviorally relevant stimuli.4,6,7 Here, we investigated how odor coding in the antennal lobe (AL) changes with age in the context of alarm pheromone communication in the clonal raider ant (Ooceraea biroi).17 Similar to other social insects,11,12,16 older ants responded more rapidly to alarm pheromones, the chemical signals for danger. Using whole-AL calcium imaging,18 we then mapped odor representations for five general odorants and two alarm pheromones in young and old ants. Alarm pheromones were represented sparsely at all ages. However, alarm pheromone responses within individual glomeruli changed with age, either increasing or decreasing. Only two glomeruli became sensitized to alarm pheromones with age, while at the same time becoming desensitized to general odorants. Our results suggest that the heightened response to alarm pheromones in older ants occurs via increased sensitivity in these two core glomeruli, illustrating the importance of sensory modulation in social insect division of labor and age-associated behavioral plasticity.