Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Ioannis Pisokas, Wolfgang Roessler, Barbara Webb, Jochen Zeil, Ajay Narendra
Summary: Solitary foraging insects, such as ants, use path integration to estimate the direction and distance to their starting location. Anesthesia experiments on ants show that the memory of the distance traveled is degraded after recovery, but the memory of the direction is retained. This suggests that path integration memory is based on an activity-dependent molecular process.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
M. Jerome Beetz, Christian Kraus, Myriam Franzke, David Dreyer, Martin F. Strube-Bloss, Wolfgang Rossler, Eric J. Warrant, Christine Merlin, Basil El Jundi
Summary: Animals use an internal compass for navigation, which is crucial for long-distance migrating animals like monarch butterflies. During flight, the heading-direction neurons in monarch butterflies change their tuning, transforming the central-complex network to function as a global compass. This allows for robust heading representation even under unreliable visual scenarios.
Editorial Material
Behavioral Sciences
Gunther K. H. Zupanc, Kentaro Arikawa, Charlotte Helfrich-Forster, Uwe Homberg, Peter M. Narins, Wolfgang Rossler, Andrea Megela Simmons, Eric J. Warrant
Summary: This article introduces the winners of the 2022 Editors' Choice Award and Readers' Choice Award in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A, as well as the categories and content of the awarded papers. The Editors' Choice Award winners were selected by the Editorial Board based on highly recommended papers in Volume 207 in 2021, while the Readers' Choice Award winners were determined by access numbers of articles in Volume 206 in 2020.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY A-NEUROETHOLOGY SENSORY NEURAL AND BEHAVIORAL PHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Pauline N. Fleischmann, Robin Grob, Wolfgang Roessler
Summary: Calaglyphis desert ants calibrate their compass systems and learn visual panoramas at the beginning of foraging careers, using structured initial learning walks and re-learning walks. Foragers and novices show differences in compass cues and behaviors, but remain magnetosensitive in cue conflict situations under manipulated panorama conditions.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY A-NEUROETHOLOGY SENSORY NEURAL AND BEHAVIORAL PHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Alexandre Andrade Loch, Anderson Ara, Lucas Hortencio, Julia Hatagami Marques, Leda Leme Talib, Julio Cesar Andrade, Mauricio Henriques Serpa, Luciano Sanchez, Tania Maria Alves, Martinus Theodorus van de Bilt, Wulf Roessler, Wagner Farid Gattaz
Summary: The 'at risk mental state' (ARMS) paradigm has been applied in studying prodromal phases of schizophrenia, but faces challenges in preventative medicine. By using Bayesian networks, a holistic model was developed to predict conversion to psychiatric illness among ARMS individuals, achieving a high accuracy rate.
NEUROSCIENCE LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Biology
Robin Grob, Oliver Holland Cunz, Kornelia Gruebel, Keram Pfeiffer, Wolfgang Roessler, Pauline N. Fleischmann
Summary: Many animals navigate using celestial cues in challenging environments. Cataglyphis desert ants use a time-compensated skylight compass to navigate efficiently. The ants must learn the sun's daily course before foraging, which leads to structural changes in their visual neuronal circuits. The rotation of skylight polarization during learning walks plays a key role in inducing learning-dependent rewiring in high-order integration centers of the ant brain.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Psychiatry
Alexandre Andrade Loch, Natalia Bezerra Mota, Wulf Roessler, Wagner Farid Gattaz
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Physiology
Fabian Schmalz, Basil El Jundi, Wolfgang Roessler, Martin Strube-Bloss
Summary: Multisensory integration plays a central role in perception, and honeybees' mushroom body output neurons (MBON) categorize incoming sensory inputs into olfactory, visual, and olfactory-visual information. Visual cues are encoded by separate MBON subpopulations, with some tuned to specific visual features such as light intensity and light identity, while others distinguish UV-light from other light stimuli. These findings suggest that the mushroom body categorizes sensory information and channels it through distinct MBON subpopulations.
FRONTIERS IN PHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Editorial Material
Behavioral Sciences
Gunther K. H. Zupanc, Wolfgang Roessler, Eric J. J. Warrant, Uwe Homberg, Kentaro Arikawa, Charlotte Helfrich-Foerster, Peter M. M. Narins, Andrea Megela Simmons
Summary: The Journal of Comparative Physiology A, which has a history of 99 years, has published influential papers in comparative physiology and related disciplines. The winners of the 2023 Editors' Choice Awards include papers on contact chemoreception in prey sensing by octopus and magnetic maps in animal navigation. The winners of the 2023 Readers' Choice Awards include papers on thermal homeostasis of honeybee colonies and a historical letter on Einstein and the honeybee by von Frisch.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY A-NEUROETHOLOGY SENSORY NEURAL AND BEHAVIORAL PHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Wolfgang Roessler, Robin Grob, Pauline N. Fleischmann
Summary: This review examines how Cataglyphis desert ants acquire spatial information and adjust their visual compass systems. The ants perform learning walks before transitioning from the dark nest to bright sunlight, using the Earth's magnetic field as a compass. Specific sky compass cues trigger neuronal plasticity in visual circuits, while passive light exposure induces changes in synaptic complexes upstream of the central complex. A multisensory circuit model is proposed to explain the structural neuroplasticity during learning walks.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY A-NEUROETHOLOGY SENSORY NEURAL AND BEHAVIORAL PHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Jens Habenstein, Kornelia Gruebel, Keram Pfeiffer, Wolfgang Roessler
Summary: In this study, the honey bee cerebrum was anatomically and microscopically analyzed using immunolabeling and neuronal tract tracing techniques. A total of 35 neuropils and 25 fiber tracts were discovered. This brain atlas provides valuable information for studying multisensory integration in honey bees and comparative research.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Editorial Material
Neurosciences
Wolfgang Roessler
Summary: This article provides a brief overview of the skills of Cataglyphis desert ants in multisensory learning and neuronal plasticity, focusing on their transition from the dark nest interior to performing first foraging trips. It highlights desert ants as experimental models for studying the neuronal mechanisms underlying behavioral development into successful navigators.
TRENDS IN NEUROSCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Cansu Arican, Felix Johannes Schmitt, Wolfgang Roessler, Martin Fritz Strube-Bloss, Martin Paul Nawrot
Summary: Animals form behavioral decisions by evaluating sensory evidence in the context of past experiences and the current motivational state. The mushroom body, a central brain structure in insects and crustaceans, integrates sensory input with internal and external factors through a network of inputs, suggesting a role in state-dependent sensory-motor transformation. Recent studies have shown that the mushroom body encodes the valence of sensory stimuli with respect to their behavioral relevance. This study further demonstrates that the mushroom body output represents an integrated signal of internal state, environmental conditions, and experience-dependent memory to encode a behavioral decision.
Article
Physiology
Martin Strube-Bloss, Patrick Guenzel, Carmen A. Nebauer, Johannes Spaethe
Summary: Animals often combine information from different sensory pathways to accurately perceive their environment. The process of multimodal integration is not well understood, but it is believed that the neural representation of individual elements in a multimodal stimulus can enhance or suppress each other's perception. In a study on Western honeybees, it was found that the integration of olfactory and visual stimuli accelerated visual responses but slowed down olfactory response time.
FRONTIERS IN PHYSIOLOGY
(2023)