Honeybees and Humans Share Similar Signaling Behavior
March 16, 2012| |
A team of scientists from Cornell University, University of Illinois and Wellesley College have found that humans and bees share the same signaling compound in regulating novelty seeking (in humans) and scouting (in bees).
"The questions driving this study were, what makes some bees boldly go where no bee has gone before? What underlies the tendency of some bees to function as scout bees -- to seek novelty when foraging and house-hunting?" said co-author Thomas Seeley, Cornell professor of neurobiology and behavior.
Differentiating the scouting and the non-scouting bees, the researchers found strong differences in the expression of 10 genes that code for compounds dopamine, glutamate and gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling. Similar neurochemical signaling pathways have been associated in personality differences between humans which are important in understanding personality differences in organisms.
Details on this research can be viewed at http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March12/HoneybeeScouts.html
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