Using Honey Bees to Study the Ageing Process

Biology News Net has an entry titled A young brain for an old bee. The brief article notes that cognitive function delines with age but it also mentions that our specific activites can impact the decline according to recent studies. That's where the study of bees comes in.

There are two specific bee activities which have differing cognitive decline correlates. Foraging is performed by the oldest bees in a colony. A diminished learning capacity has been linked to time spent foraging. The longer the bee forages the greater the cognitive decline.

On the other hand bees devoted to nursing functions are resistent to cognitive decline. It was demonstrated that foraging bees, when forced to become nursing bees, acquire improved learning ability. The implications for humans are exciting. If human activities can be linked to enhanced and diminished learning capacities then those activities will acquire an important new dimension particularly relevant to ageing effects.