[fwd: jbeard@aip.org: bee learning in Nature]

[Bill Skaggs]

This is a very interesting piece of work, but the "news release" is
overblown and historically ignorant.  The connection between mushroom
bodies and learning has been known for a long time.  There is also
direct evidence for changes in the structure of the mushroom bodies as
a result of experience:  Coss and Perkel over a decade ago found
changes in the length of dendritic spines after honeybees went on a
single exploratory flight.  This is much more direct than the evidence
described in the "news release".
 
Contrary to the claims in the "news release", these new results are
unlikely to tell us much about human learning.  It is not true that the
honeybee brain is merely a simpler version of the human brain.  They're
completely different -- even the neurons are different in structure.
Also insect learning and mammal learning are qualitatively different:
for example, both honeybees and mammals can learn to navigate to a
location using landmarks, but honeybees do it by simple visual
pattern-matching, while mammals use considerably more sophisticated
algorithms.  

Furthermore, it is not news that experience can lead to an increase in
the number of connections.  It has long been known that mammals raised
in an enriched environment have thicker cortices, due to a greater
density of synaptic structures.  Surely this is more directly relevant
to humans than data from honeybees could be.

It's a shame to obscure a nice piece of work by making bogus claims
about its significance.

	-- Bill