Biology subjects

Buatois, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Buatois, A..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

AnimalTA: A simple yet flexible tool for video tracking and manual corrections.

O_LIVideo-tracking programs have now become an essential tool for researchers measuring animal behavior across biological fields. The panel of available programs is growing rapidly, providing researchers with numerous specific tools that will match their precise needs. However, their proliferation may complicate post-tracking data processing, and some programs do not even provide tools for correcting tracking errors or analysing tracking data. In the case of commercial software, the loss of access to a program due to budget limitations or researchers mobility from one institution to another could prevent them from accessing and visualizing their tracking data. C_LIO_LIThere is therefore a growing need for an accessible and flexible tool to handle post-tracking processes such as the correction and analysis of tracking data obtained across different video-tracking programs. C_LIO_LIWe present here the latest update of the video tracking and analysis program AnimalTA. With this new release, we propose to solve the above-mentioned problems by providing the scientific community with a program that will allow for data importation from other video-tracking programs. Like in its previous versions, AnimalTA remains a free, open-source, and highly user-friendly program, ensuring that it will always be accessible without restriction. Now, with this new importation option, users who performed their tracking with other programs can benefit from AnimalTAs complete toolset of data visualization, correction, and analysis. C_LIO_LIFinally, this article gives an overview of the other main improvements associated with this new release. The program is now faster in both video importation and tracking, proposes an amplified toolset for data visualization and correction, and features new options for data analysis. C_LI

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2022

Acute administration of a dopamine D2/D3 receptor agonist alters behavioral and neural parameters in adult zebrafish

The dopaminergic neurotransmitter system is involved in numerous brain functions and behavioral processes. Alterations in this neurotransmitter system are associated with the pathogenesis of several human neurological disorders. Pharmacological agents that interact with the dopaminergic system allow the investigation of dopamine-mediated cellular and molecular responses and may elucidate the biological bases of such disorders. The zebrafish, a translationally relevant biomedical research organism, has been successfully employed in prior psychopharmacology studies. Here, we evaluate the effects of quinpirole (a dopamine D2/D3 receptor agonist) in adult zebrafish on behavioral parameters and neurotransmitter levels. Adult zebrafish received intraperitoneal injections of 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0 mg/kg of quinpirole or saline (control group) twice with an inter-injection interval of 48h. All tests were performed 24h after the second injection. After acute quinpirole administration, zebrafish exhibited decreased locomotor activity, increased anxiety-like behaviors and memory impairment compared to control. However, the quinpirole administration did not affect social and aggressive behavior. Quinpirole-treated fish exhibited altered swimming patterns: fish showed stereotypic swimming characterized by repetitive behavior, swimming from corner to corner at the bottom of the tank preceded and followed by episodes of immobility. Moreover, analysis of neurotransmitter levels in the brain demonstrated a significant increase in glutamate and a decrease in serotonin, while no alterations were observed in dopamine. These findings demonstrate that dopaminergic signaling altered by quinpirole administration results in significant changes in behavior and neurotransmitter levels in the central nervous system of zebrafish. Thus, we conclude that the use of quinpirole administration in adult zebrafish may be an appropriate tool for the analysis of mechanisms underlying neurological disorders related to the dopaminergic system.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Bumblebees develop more efficient traplines than honey bees

Central place foraging pollinators, such as bees, tend to learn multi-destination routes (traplines) to efficiently visit known feeding locations and return to their nest. To what extent these routing behaviours are shared across species is unknown. Here we ran laboratory experiments to compare trapline formation and efficiency by foragers of two social bee species that differ in their collective foraging strategies: the solo foraging bumblebee Bombus terrestris and the mass foraging honey bee Apis mellifera. In a simple routing task with four artificial flowers, both bumblebees and honey bees developed a stable route, although honey bees were slower and less efficient to do so. In a more complex routing task with six flowers, only bumblebees developed a stable route. Honey bees took a longer time to discover all flowers and never integrated them in a single route. Simulations of a model of trapline formation show that these inter-specific differences can be replicated by adjusting the strength of a single learning parameter. Comparing bumblebees and honey bees in the same experimental conditions thus revealed key differences in their spatial foraging strategies, potentially driven by social constraints.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2018

Higher-order discrimination learning by honey bees in a virtual environment

Non-elemental learning constitutes a cognitive challenge because, contrary to elemental learning forms, it does not rely on simple associations, as events to be learned are usually ambiguous in terms of reinforcement outcome. Negative patterning constitutes a paradigmatic case of non-elemental learning, as subjects have to learn that single elements A and B are reinforced while their conjunctive representation AB is not reinforced (A+, B+ vs. AB-). Solving this problem requires treating the compound AB as being different from the linear sum of its components in order to overcome stimulus ambiguity (A+/A- and B+/B-). The honey bee is the only insect capable of mastering negative patterning as shown by numerous studies restricted mainly to the olfactory domain. Here we studied the capacity of bees to solve a negative patterning discrimination in the visual domain and used to this end a virtual reality (VR) environment in which a tethered bee walking stationary on a treadmill faces visual stimuli projected on a semicircular screen. Stimuli are updated by the bees movements, thus creating an immersive environment. Bees were trained to discriminate single-colored gratings rewarded with sucrose solution (blue, green; A+, B+) from a non-rewarded composite grating (blue-green, AB-). Bees learned this discrimination in the VR environment and inhibited to this end linear processing of the composite grating, which otherwise is treated as the sum of its components. Our results show for the first time mastering of a non-linear visual discrimination in a VR environment by honey bees, thus highlighting the value of VR for the study of cognition in insects.

animal behavior and cognition↗