Chronic nicotine exposure influences learning and memory in the honey bee.

In insects, nicotine activates nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which are expressed throughout the central nervous system. However, little work has been done to investigate the effects of chronic nicotine treatment on learning or other behaviors in non-herbivorous insects. To examine the effects of long term nicotine consumption on learning and memory, honey bees were fed nicotine containing solutions over four days.

The impact of temporal modulations in irradiance under light adapted conditions on the mouse suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN).

Electrophysiological responses of SCN neurons to light steps are well established, but responses to more natural modulations in irradiance have been much less studied. We address this deficit first by showing that variations in irradiance for human subjects are biased towards low temporal frequencies and small magnitudes. Using extracellular recordings we show that neurons in the mouse SCN are responsive to stimuli with these characteristics, tracking sinusoidal modulations in irradiance best at lower temporal frequencies and responding to abrupt changes in irradiance over a range of commonly encountered contrasts.