RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Neural Correlates of Odor Learning in the Presynaptic Microglomerular Circuitry in the Honeybee Mushroom Body Calyx JF eneuro JO eNeuro FD Society for Neuroscience SP ENEURO.0128-18.2018 DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0128-18.2018 VO 5 IS 3 A1 Haenicke, Joachim A1 Yamagata, Nobuhiro A1 Zwaka, Hanna A1 Nawrot, Martin A1 Menzel, Randolf YR 2018 UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/5/3/ENEURO.0128-18.2018.abstract AB The mushroom body (MB) in insects is known as a major center for associative learning and memory, although exact locations for the correlating memory traces remain to be elucidated. Here, we asked whether presynaptic boutons of olfactory projection neurons (PNs) in the main input site of the MB undergo neuronal plasticity during classical odor-reward conditioning and correlate with the conditioned behavior. We simultaneously measured Ca2+ responses in the boutons and conditioned behavioral responses to learned odors in honeybees. We found that the absolute amount of the neural change for the rewarded but not for the unrewarded odor was correlated with the behavioral learning rate across individuals. The temporal profile of the induced changes matched with odor response dynamics of the MB-associated inhibitory neurons, suggestive of activity modulation of boutons by this neural class. We hypothesize the circuit-specific neural plasticity relates to the learned value of the stimulus and underlies the conditioned behavior of the bees.