Single amino acids in sucrose rewards modulate feeding and associative learning in the honeybee

Obtaining the correct balance of nutrients requires that the brain integrates information about the body’s nutritional state with sensory information from food to guide feeding behaviour. Learning is a mechanism that allows animals to identify cues associated with nutrients so that they can be located quickly when required. Feedback about nutritional state is essential for nutrient balancing and could influence learning. How specific this feedback is to individual nutrients has not often been examined. Here, we tested how the honeybee’s nutritional state influenced the likelihood it would feed on and learn sucrose solutions containing single amino acids. Nutritional state was manipulated by pre-feeding bees with either 1 M sucrose or 1 M sucrose containing 100 mM of isoleucine, proline, phenylalanine, or methionine 24 h prior to olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension response. We found that bees pre-fed sucrose solution consumed less of solutions containing amino acids and were also less likely to learn to associate amino acid solutions with odours. Unexpectedly, bees pre-fed solutions containing an amino acid were also less likely to learn to associate odours with sucrose the next day. Furthermore, they consumed more of and were more likely to learn when rewarded with an amino acid solution if they were pre-fed isoleucine and proline. Our data indicate that single amino acids at relatively high concentrations inhibit feeding on sucrose solutions containing them, and they can act as appetitive reinforcers during learning. Our data also suggest that select amino acids interact with mechanisms that signal nutritional sufficiency to reduce hunger. Based on these experiments, we predict that nutrient balancing for essential amino acids during learning requires integration of information about several amino acids experienced simultaneously.