Now, a group of researchers led by Christian Gruber of MedUni Vienna's Institute of Pharmacology have developed a method that allows them to study ants’ brain chemistry and gain insights into the insects’ neurobiological processes.

 

The findings could help to explain the evolution of social behaviour in the animal kingdom, and shed light on the biochemistry of certain hormone systems that have developed similarly in both ants and humans. For the study, the researchers used a combination of high-resolution mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) and micro-computed tomography (µCT) to map the three-dimensional distribution of neuropeptides in the brains of two ant species: the leafcutter ant (Atta sexdens) and the black garden ant (Lasius niger).