Current position
Senior Fellow in the Research School of Biological Sciences, The
Australian National University
Research interests
One
of the major challenges of modern biology is to unravel the mechanisms
of the brain at a multitude of levels. This endeavour entails
not only understanding the functioning of the most complex and
sophisticated of organs, but understanding the process of understanding
per se.
I
chose the visual system as a break-through point for understanding
the mechanisms of the brain. I prefer to use insects, especially
honeybees as a model system to approach this goal. The bee's brain
is small, but, like humans, they have trichromatic colour vision,
motion sensitive vision, and spatial vision. Recently our team
has discovered that bees are capable of abstracting features of
patterns, and like humans, they have visual illusions as well
as top-down processing, they are able to use symbolic rules for
navigating and even form concepts such as sameness' and ‘difference'.
My
current interests focus on the following aspects:
Learning
and memory in honeybees;
Visual
cognition in the honeybee navigation;
The
underlying neural substrates of visual navigation in honeybees;
Selected
Publications
S.W. Zhang and M.V. Srinivasan (1994). Prior
Experience Enhances Pattern Discrimination in Insect Vision. Nature 368, 330-333. [93.9KB]
S.W. Zhang, M.V. Srinivasan and T. Collett (1995). Convergent
Processing in Honeybee Vision: Multiple Channels for the Recognition
of Shape
PNAS 92,
3029-3031. [8.43MB]
S.W. Zhang, K. Bartsch and M.V. Srinivasan (1996). Maze
learning by honeybee. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 66, 267-282. [1.19MB]
M.V. Srinivasan, S.W. Zhang and H. Zhu (1998). Honeybees
link sights to smells. Nature (Lond.) 396, 637-638. [243KB]
S.W. Zhang, M. Lehrer and M.V. Srinivasan (1999). Honeybee
memory: Navigation by associative grouping and recall of visual
stimuli.
Neurobiology
of Learning and Memory 72, 180-201. [236 KB]
M.V. Srinivasan, S. W. Zhang, M. Altwein and J. Tautz (2000). Honeybee
Navigation: Nature and Calibration of the ‘Odometer'
Science 287, 851-853. [93.9KB]
S.W. Zhang, A. Mizutani and M.V. Srinivasan (2000). Maze
navigation by honeybees: learning path regularity
Learning and Memory 7
363-374. [8.43MB]
M. Giurfa, S. W. Zhang, A. Jenett, R. Menzel and M.V. Srinivasan (2001). The
concepts of “sameness” and “difference” in an insect.
Nature
410, 930-933. [162 KB]
H.E. Esch, S.W. Zhang, J. Tautz, M.V. Srinivasan (2001). Honeybee
dances communicate distances measured by optic flow.
Nature 411, 581-583. [136KB]
L. Chen , S. W. Zhang and M.V. Srinivasan (2003). Global
perception in small brains: Topological pattern recognition in
honey bees.
PNAS
100, 6884-6889. [259 KB]
J. Reinhard, M. V. Srinivasan and S. W. Zhang (2004). Scent-triggered
navigation in honeybees.
Nature 427, 411. [121KB]
J. Tautz, S. W. Zhang, J. Spaethe, A. Brockmann, A. Si and M. V. Srinivasan (2004). Honeybee
Odometry: Performance in Varying Natural Terrain.
PLOS 2 915-923. [240MB]
S.W. Zhang and M.V. Srinivasan. Visual
Perception and Cognition in Honeybees In: The Visual Neurosciences, edited by Leo Chalupa and J. S. Werner,
MIT Press, ISBN: 0-262-03308-9, (2004) pp.1501-1513. [1.30MB]
S. W. Zhang and M. V. Srinivasan. Exploration
of cognitive capacity in honeybees (2004).
In Complex Worlds from Simpler Nervous Systems, edited by Frederick
R. Prete. MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-16223-7 (hc)-ISBN 0-262-66174-8
(pb) (2004) pp. 41-74. [1.11MB]
S. W. Zhang, F. Bock, A. Si, J. Tautz and M. V. Srinivasan (2005). Visual
working memory in decision making by honeybees.
PNAS 102, 5250-5255. [395KB]
Pinar Letzkus, Willi A. Ribi, Jeff T.Wood, Hong Zhu, Shao-Wu Zhang, Mandyam V. Srinivasan (2006). Lateralization of olfaction in the honeybee Apis mellifera , Current Biology 16 1471-1476 [271KB]
Emily Baird, Mandyam V. Srinivasan, Shaowu Zhang, Richard Lamont and Ann Cowling (2006). Visual Control of Flight Speed and Height in the Honeybee, In book From Animals to Animats 9, 9th International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, SAB 2006 Rome, Italy, Setember 2006, Proceedings, Eds J. G. Carbonell and J. Siekmann, Springer, ISSN 0302-9743. p 40-51. [333KB]
Aung Si, Shao-Wu Zhang, R. Maleszka (2006). Effects of caffeine on olfactory and visual learning in the honey bee (Apis mellifera). Pharmacology, Biochemistry & Behaviour, 82: 664–672. [150KB]
Judith Reinhard, Mandyam V. Srinivasan, Shaowu Zhang (2006). Complex memories in honeybees: can there be more than two? Journal Comparative Physiology A 192: 409–416 [219KB]
Shaowu Zhang, Sebastian Schwarz, Mario Pahl, Hong Zhu and Juergen Tautz (2006). Honeybee memory: a honeybee knows what to do and when, Journal of Experimental Biology, 209 4420-4428 [187KB]
M. V. Srinivasan, S. W. Zhang and J. Reinhard (2006). Small brains, smart minds: vision, perception, navigation and ‘cognition’ in insects, In: Invertebrate Vision, Eds Eric Warrant and Dan-Eric Nilsson. CambridgeUniversity Press. [1.46MB]
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