{"id":3868,"date":"2022-03-17T10:00:21","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T10:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/freezing-ants-allows-scientists-to-decipher-their-navigational-system\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T12:06:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T12:06:21","slug":"freezing-ants-allows-scientists-to-decipher-their-navigational-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/freezing-ants-allows-scientists-to-decipher-their-navigational-system","title":{"rendered":"Freezing ants allows scientists to decipher their navigational system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">We\u2019ve heard Coldplay sing \u201clights will guide you home\u201d but can you imagine a mathematical theorem guiding ants home? Yes, you read it right.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">A group of scientists &#8212; Ioannis Pisokas, who is pursuing<b> <\/b>PhD in Computational Neuroscience and BioRobotics at the University of Edinburgh; Ajay Narendra, a senior lecturer at School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University; and Ayse Yilmaz-Heusinger, a postdoctoral researcher in Functional Zoology, Lund University \u2013 investigated how ants can locate their anthills after travelling long distances in search of food. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">Ants travel in relation to the sun\u2019s position in the sky and calculate the distance covered with the help of their own motion. This strategy is called path integration<sup>1<\/sup> using which ants can locate a point just by knowing the distance travelled and the direction taken.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">But how does a tiny insect\u2019s mind identify the right direction and measure the distance? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">The researchers dug deeper into an ant\u2019s brain using latest advancements in microscopy and genetics, which enabled them to analyse the working of neurons individually and in relation to other neurons. It was found that ants constantly update their speed in their memory to calculate the distance they have travelled. More surprising is the fact that they retain the memory for several days as \u201cthese two aspects of memory \u2013 fast updating and long lasting \u2013 are typically considered incompatible\u201d<sup>2<\/sup>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">To understand their memory\u2019s neural network, the scientists decided to <span class=\"cf01\" style=\"font-family: 'Segoe UI',sans-serif;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif;\">anaesthetize ants by freezing them, which disables their brains\u2019 electrical activity. <\/span><\/span><\/span>Freezing the ants helped the scientists confirm if memories of distance and direction were stored as short-term electrical activities or long-lasting memories in the insect\u2019s brain.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">The scientists picked up ants who were away from their homes and froze them. After a while, they normalized the temperature and released them at an unknown location. The ants immediately figured out the right direction but failed to calculate the distance to their homes. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">The result confused the scientists as they couldn\u2019t categorize the memories as short-term or long-lasting. However, they concluded that the distance and the direction form a single memory in the insect\u2019s brain and is partially affected when frozen. Additionally, they have theorized that ants use the Cartesian coordinate system<sup>3<\/sup>\u00a0to navigate, but the freezing affects this to a great extent. In simple words, suppose that ants know their destination in x-y coordinates. When frozen, they partially lose the memory\u00a0and the values of X and Y reduce equally, thus changing the coordinates proportionately. As a result, though the sense of direction is correct the distance calculation is affected. As a result, the ants identify the correct\u00a0direction on the X-Y axes, but fail to calculate the distance correctly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\"><b><span lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 14.0pt;\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\">References:<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">1. Collett, T. <i>Path integration: how details of the honeybee waggle dance and the foraging strategies of desert ants might help in understanding its mechanisms<\/i>. <a style=\"color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1242\/jeb.205187\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1242\/jeb.205187<\/a><b> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">2. <i>The insect brain: we froze ants and beetles to learn how they remember their way\u00a0home<\/i>. <a style=\"color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/life\/insects-navigation\/\">https:\/\/bigthink.com\/life\/insects-navigation\/<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">3. Cartesian coordinate system. <a style=\"color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cartesian_coordinate_system\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cartesian_coordinate_system<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">4. <i>An Anatomically Constrained Model for Path Integration in the Bee Brain<\/i>. <a style=\"color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.cub.2017.08.052\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.cub.2017.08.052<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">5. <i>Anesthesia disrupts distance, but not direction, of path integration memory<\/i>. <a style=\"color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.cub.2021.11.039\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.cub.2021.11.039<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\"><b><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\">Related readings:<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\"><a style=\"color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/ants-can-detect-their-health-issues-and-self-medicate?refer-type=article-research\">Ants can detect their health issues and self-medicate<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\"><a style=\"color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/do-bees-use-a-cognitive-map-to-navigate?refer-type=article-research\">Do bees use a &#8216;cognitive map&#8217; to navigate?<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 107%;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif;\"><a style=\"color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/what-happens-neurologically-when-a-person-processes-new-information?refer-type=article-research\">What happens neurologically when a person processes new information?<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve heard Coldplay sing \u201clights will guide you home\u201d but can you imagine a mathematical theorem guiding ants home? Yes, you read it right. A group of scientists &#8212; Ioannis Pisokas, who is pursuing PhD in Computational Neuroscience and BioRobotics at the University of Edinburgh; Ajay Narendra, a senior lecturer at School of Natural Sciences, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2646,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2435],"tags":[1154,2482],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-3868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-research","tag-global-science","tag-science-update"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Freezing ants allows scientists to decipher their navigational system | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A group of scientists\u00a0investigated how ants can locate their anthills after travelling long distances in search of food. 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