Researchers from the Centre for Neuroscience have been awarded funding of £1.8million to examine whether the use of pesticides is hampering the cognitive functions of bees - and possibly hastening their demise. The multidisciplinary project, led by Dr Chris Connolly and Dr Jenni Harvey from the University’s Centre for Neuroscience, will examine whether chronic exposure to a combination of chemicals could be harming bumblebees and honeybees, whose decline in number has attracted worldwide coverage over the past few years.
It is one of nine projects to share in a £10million funding package announced today as part of National Insect Week. The funding is provided by the Insect Pollinators Initiative, which aims to explore the causes and consequences of threats to insect pollinators, ensure that the pollination of agricultural and horticultural crops is protected and that biodiversity in natural ecosystems is maintained.
The Dundee team will investigate the 'synergistic impact of sublethal exposure to industrial chemicals on the learning capacity and performance of bees brains'. While pesticides are screened to be non-lethal to bees before they are passed for use, Dr Connolly said the Dundee team will examine whether a combination of chemicals used in agriculture may cause unexpected damage to bees.
'Many insecticides work by interfering with information flow in the brains of insects - either increasing or decreasing their brain activity,' he said. 'We will be looking at whether chronic exposure to chemicals used to control mites, combined with levels of agricultural pesticides that are not themselves lethal , may act together to magnify their affects on bee brain function.'
In collaboration with Dr Geraldine Wright (University of Newcastle) and Dr Nigel Raine (Royal Holloway, London) they will investigate the potential damaging effects of such agents on bee performance in learning visual and olfactory skills, foraging, navigation and communication.
'We rely on a varied cocktail of pesticides to protect our food supply and homes from pest damage,' continued Dr Connolly. 'Pesticides are also used to protect honeybees from mite infestation. Exposure to such chemicals could also be harming other beneficial pollinators and chronic exposure may be particularly important in the context of other challenges faced by these insects. Such effects may have a serious impact on biodiversity.
'It is believed that pesticides, when present in isolation, at the levels thought to exist in the environment, do not kill bees. Our hypothesis is that these chemicals may have a synergistic effect on the brain function of bees.
'Problems may manifest at a number of behavioural levels: Navigation (finding their way to food or returning home), communication (passing information regarding food supplies) and learning/memory (failure to remember food sources). In addition, developmental consequences may affect bee maturity and cognitive abilities.
'If bees were to die out, then our food security would be seriously compromised. We rely exclusively on bees to pollinate such a large number of our staple foods and the only alternative, which is hand pollination, is not really an option.'
The number of bees in the UK fell by up to 15 per cent in the two years up to April 2009, while the population of butterflies and other insects is also down. Declining numbers of bees are particularly concerning as it is believed up to a third of human nutrition is dependant on bee pollination and the total loss of insect pollinators could cost up to £440million per year in the UK alone. 
No single cause for pollinator decline has been identified, and the reasons behind it are thought to be complex and involve interactions between the pollinator, the environment and the pests/diseases that affect these insects. Because of the vital role pollinating insects play, it is absolutely crucial that research is carried out to try and reverse the decline.
The projects will look at different aspects of the decline of insect pollinators. Some will focus on specific species and/or diseases; others will look more broadly at factors affecting the health and survival of some or all pollinating insects. The initiative brings together researchers from many disciplines including ecology, molecular biology, mathematics, and computing.
Dr Connolly and Dr Harvey’s research usually focuses on the neuronal communication in the mammal brain, but Dr Connolly said the pollinator decline crisis was of such importance that their skills, when aligned with those of existing bee experts, could be helpful in examining the insect world. Moreover bees, along with ants and wasps, are unusual - not just amongst insects, but mammals too - in that they live in a complex society. As such, they may provide a novel model system to study social learning.
The Dundee scientists will work closely with colleagues at Royal Holloway Hospital, the University of Newcastle and University College London as part of the research.
They will monitor honeybees and bumblebees and investigate their ability to learn different visual and olfactory tasks. In addition, they will assess their performance using the radio tagging of individual bees. Finally, the group will attempt to develop the first honeybee cell line for use in the screening of future pesticides and miticides. In partnership with the Scottish Beekeepers Association they will carry out a three year survey to correlate the impact of environmental chemicals to colony performance and investigate if patterns of environmental risk factors support the laboratory data.
In summary, this project will be seeking to understand the molecular basis of learning and memory in bees using our knowledge of mammalian processes and address if, and how, these are affected by pesticide exposure.
'If synergetic effects are discovered to impair the brain function of bees, this information may influence the coordination of pesticide use. Moreover, we must then also look at whether the combination of these chemicals has the same effect on humans,' added Dr Connolly. 'Although pesticides are designed not to work on humans, synergistic interactions may amplify toxicity as much as 1000-fold.'
Congratulations to all Neuroscience and Pharmacology students who graduated this year, including our PhD graduates pictured above(l-r) Dr Amy Cameron, Dr Paul Meekin, Dr Sarah Mizielinska, Dr Matthew Livesey, Dr Christopher Henstridge, Dr Selma Dadak and Dr Edward Maguire celebrating Graduation Day 2010. We are very proud of our graduates and we wish them the best of luck in their future careers
The illustration opposite shows a Simplified schematic illustrating the reciprocal connectivity (left) and firing properties (right) of the principle neurones of the thalamic network. The GABA-ergic neurones of the nucleus reticularis thalami (nRT, red) and glutamatergic thalamo-cortical relay cells (blue) are important components of the sleep circuitry. However, perturbations of normal activity within the thalamo-cortical network may play a role in the pathogenesis of absence seizures, a form of epilepsy characterised by brief loss of consciousness.
Congratulations to Adam Brown who was awarded the first prize of £500 in the AstraZeneca Poster Prize. This prize was awarded for the best poster at the 2009 at Winter Meeting of the British Pharmacological Society which is held in London.
Adam is currently in the third year of his PhD. He is working in the Centre for Neuroscience with Dr Delia Belelli and Professor Jeremy Lambert on how endogenously produced neurosteroids influence neuronal excitability and consequently impact on our mood and behavior.
The University of Dundee has created a new Institute of Academic Anaesthesia to raise the profile of research and education in a key area of medical science.
Anaesthesia affects everyone. Most people have received local anaesthetic injections at the dentist, many will also have been subjected to full scale general anaesthesia in preparation for surgery and some rely on long-term medication for the treatment of persistent pain.
Despite this, existing anaesthetics are far from ideal and a lack of research in the area has been identified, most notably in a 2005 report from the Royal College of Anaesthetists.
'People expect safe and effective pain relief,' said Professor Tim Hales, Director of the new Institute. “However, all anaesthetics have deficiencies, which is not surprising given that most entered clinical use through a process of trial and error.
'Local anaesthetics in the dental setting not only kill pain but leave the face numb and partially paralysed. General anaesthetics, such as the intravenous agent propofol (the drug responsible for Michael Jackson’s untimely death) are lethal at doses slightly higher than those used for surgical anaesthesia. Opioid analgesic drugs commonly used to treat long-term pain are structurally related to heroin and become less effective with prolonged use, leading to physical and sometimes psychological dependence.
'There is a pressing need for research leading to improved anaesthetics.'
The Royal College of Anaesthetists report prescribed measures to help reinvigorate the academic mission of university departments of anaesthesia. The University of Dundee, working with partners in NHS Tayside, has responded to this challenge by appointing Professor Hales from a prominent position in the United States. It marks a return to Dundee, where he studied for his PhD 20 years ago.
£500,000 has been invested in refurbishing laboratories and office space at the School of Medicine at Ninewells Hospital to accommodate the Institute, which will work closely alongside the University’s Centre for Neuroscience.
The Centre for Neuroscience is already known internationally for work in the laboratories of Professor Jeremy Lambert and Dr Delia Belelli on the mechanism of general anaesthetics.
Professor Hales expressed his enthusiasm for the challenges posed by the new position. 'Bringing my lab to Dundee will strengthen ongoing collaborations with Professor Lambert and others in the Centre for Neuroscience while establishing new collaborations with clinical investigators within the department.
'The generous support of the University and several local charities has enabled us to create a fully equipped Institute of Academic Anaesthesia comprised of a suite of laboratories and office space. This is a facility in which basic scientists and anaesthetists will work together. Bringing clinical investigators and experts in imaging, electrophysiology and behavioural neuroscience together will accelerate progress in the development of safer and more effective anaesthetics'
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