Stevia : A True Glycoside Used as a Sweetener and Not Affecting Behavior

Using ants as models, the glycoside rebaudioside A used as a sweetener extracted from the plant Stevia rebaudiana was shown to have no effect on the individuals’ food consumption, locomotion, precision of reaction, response to pheromones, brood caring, cognition, as well as visual and olfactory conditioning and memory. This sweetener (the commercial product ‘stevia’) slightly increased the ants’ audacity, and when having the choice between it and saccharose, the ants somewhat preferred the later. In fact, the ants were not inclined to consume stevia and somewhat looked everywhere for their usual preferred sugar. We conclude that stevia is a safe sweetener which does not impact general health, behavior and cognition, although it is generally perceived less pleasant than saccharose.