For instance, responsiveness to shock could be correlated to defensive responsiveness to Isopentyl Acetate (IPA), the main component of the sting alarm pheromone [33], 2-Heptanone, an alarming substance released by mandibular glands [34], and to intruders, represented by a moving object at the hive entrance [35].
We conclude, therefore, that nectar foragers and guards significantly differ in their responsiveness to electric shocks and that the more responsive, and presumably more sensitive, foragers are the ones learning and remembering better aversive associations.
To answer this question, we determined whether or not sucrose responsiveness correlates with responsiveness to electric shocks of varying voltage.
Responsiveness to electric shock represents a situation that, even if it is artificial as bees do not have to respond to electric shocks in nature, allows measuring sensitivity to a noxious stimulus.
We show that foragers are better learners than guards in aversive conditioning, a fact that can be explained on the basis of differences in responsiveness to electric shock.
The fact that sucrose responsiveness does not account for responsiveness to electric shock is in contradiction with previous suggestions [10] arguing that "bees who are sensitive to sucrose are also sensitive to stimuli of other modalities".
A single-cohort experiment [51] in which bees of the same age could be biased to perform different tasks could allow deciding whether dopamine levels, and thus responsiveness to electric shock, are the consequence of task specialization and of queen proximity, or result from age, independently of the task performed.
Furthermore, the interaction between group and stimulus type was also non-significant (F1,196 = 0.87, NS for sucrose and F1,196 = 0.24, NS for electric shocks), thus confirming that responsiveness to sucrose and shock were unaffected by the order of stimulation.
The difference between Māori who live locally to their iwi and those who do not is even more pronounced when we consider responsiveness to local labour market shocks.
Indeed, this treatment has been shown to improve rapidly (1 hour after treatment administration) vascular responsiveness to catecholamines in septic shock patients and healthy volunteers [ 14, 15].
