Mattens, Anneline;
Christiaens, Hannelore;
Debeuckelaere, Kamiel;
Di Pietro, Viviana;
Ferreira, Helena Mendes;
Nascimento, Fabio Santos do;
Oi, Cintia Akemi;
(2025)
Age-related differences in learning, memory and brain plasticity in workers of the common wasp Vespula vulgaris.
Journal of Experimental Biology
10.1242/jeb.251673.
(In press).
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Abstract
Learning, memory, and brain plasticity are thought to play an important role in regulating behavioural roles in social insects, as workers perform different tasks as nurses, builders, foragers and defenders. However, it remains challenging to disentangle whether neural changes regulate behaviour or arise as a consequence of it. While cognition has been extensively studied, especially in honeybees, the variation of cognitive traits remains poorly understood in social wasps. Here, we investigated age-related changes in learning, memory and neuroanatomy in workers of the common wasp Vespula vulgaris. We developed a Y-maze to test differential conditioning and memory of wasps and later visualised the brains using a high-resolution micro-CT imaging. We found that younger individuals exhibited slower decision-making yet made more accurate decisions compared with older individuals, revealing a pronounced speed-accuracy trade-off. Short-term memory showed only a slight decline with age. Neuroanatomical image analyses revealed that, despite a reduction in overall brain volume, key major neuropils involved in sensory processing and learning, such as mushroom bodies, optic lobes and antennal lobes, increased in relative volume with age. These findings corroborate with studies in bees and provide novel insights into how ageing influences cognitive function and brain structure in wasps.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Age-related differences in learning, memory and brain plasticity in workers of the common wasp Vespula vulgaris |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1242/jeb.251673 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.251673 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2025. Published by The Company of Biologists. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. |
| Keywords: | Vespula vulgaris, Ageing, Associative learning, Memory, Neuroanatomy, Social insects |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10218283 |
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