Let’s be honest, when someone says Neuroscience, your first thought is not a six-legged creature with a brain the size of a grain of sand and buzzing around a flower. It probably conjures up images of a mammalian brain (Duh!), perhaps a patient tethered to an EEG machine, or maybe even rats undergoing behavioural tests. Seldom an insect. But maybe it should. Science has come a long way and developed several models for conducting neuroscience/neurobiology research to dissect out neural processes at multiple levels. Among these, Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, is one such model that has been extensively explored for its highly complex nervous system and established genetic tools. It has been the go-to model for studying circadian rhythms, learning and memory consolidation, and even neurodegeneration. And then comes the honeybee forager, scientifically termed Apis mellifera, a European social insect that makes answering real-world processes of sleep easier. Bees display complex behaviours like navigation, communication, learning, memory formation, and even social hierarchy — all of which are underpinned by neural mechanisms that can, in many ways, be compared to those in higher organisms. What makes them especially fascinating is that their behaviours are measurable, repeatable, and modifiable — a neuroscientist’s dream.
I joined National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, India for my six-month dissertation training, under the guidance of Dr. Axel Brockmann, back in July 2022. My project involved exploring how sleep influences learning and memory consolidation in forager bees. The project involved a culmination of behavioural and molecular tests to establish various parameters that define sleep in foragers. Foragers are amongst the most active in the worker castes; as the name suggests, they forage for food and pollen for the colony. They spend most of their daily energy expenditure on making multiple trips to collect food and pollen from various sources. Such a loaded task involving navigation, temporal and spatial recognition, and communication within the colony would demand enough rest. And who doesn’t love a good nap? Well, the honey bee foragers sure do as they are observed to take multiple bouts of rest throughout the day post- time training to a feeder. So one wonders if resting immediately after training hours have an effect on the genes involved in learning and memory consolidation. If changes in their sleep pattern also influence molecular changes? Can afternoon sleep alone have a stand-alone effect on such processes at the molecular level?
This project wasn’t just a technical challenge — it was a conceptual shift. It opened my eyes to how even the smallest brains could offer massive insights into cognition. Watching how a behavioural change in bees could be traced all the way down to gene expression changes in their brains made me fall in love with neurobiology all over again. It was intricate, rewarding, and at times, beautifully humbling. NCBS gave me the space to think deeply, question boldly, and connect dots across systems — from behaviour to molecules. That one semester not only shaped my scientific skills but cemented my passion for understanding the brain, in all its forms.