Popov, T. and Szyszka, P. Proc. R. Soc. B https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0115 (2020).

As the honey bees took in different scents, Tzvetan Popov of the University of Heidelberg and Paul Szyszka at the University of Otago were busy observing the local field potentials and neuronal spikes coming from the mushroom bodies of the bees’ brains. They saw a spontaneous oscillation move across both hemispheres with the odor stimuli—a wave not unlike the alpha oscillations observed in humans.

Alpha oscillations are brain waves that ripple across the human brain as neurons fire. Detectable by electroencephalogram, these waves have been linked to attention, memory, and other cognitive functions. Though the frequency of human alpha waves is a bit lower than that of bees—10 Hz vs 18 Hz, respectively—and the function of the bee oscillations is still to be determined, Popov and Szyszka suggest the honey bee might serve as a new invertebrate model to study alpha oscillations.