Sneha Khedkar is a biologist-turned-freelance-science-journalist from India. She holds a master's degree in biochemistry and a bachelor's degree in microbiology and biochemistry. After her master's, she worked as a research fellow for four years, studying stem cell biology.
Ants' complex caste system may be partly controlled by the insect version of the blood-brain barrier, a gatekeeper that only lets certain substances into the brain, a new study reveals.
Now, a recent study has shown that the blood-brain barrier , the filter that protects the brain from unneeded or potentially harmful substances, plays a role in this process. The findings, published Sept. 7 in the journal Cell, indicate that the ant BBB regulates hormone levels entering the brain, thus influencing worker ants' roles in the colony.In the study, researchers set out to understand the basis of the behavioral differences between forager and soldier ants.
Previous studies had reported that the BBB may regulate the hormone levels in the insects' brains, study co-first author Karl Glastad, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, told Live Science in an email. To see whether the enzyme would affect a less socially complex insect, the research team conducted experiments in fruit flies . Switching on the gene for juvenile hormone esterase in the fly BBB triggered behavioral changes similar to those seen in ants: The genetically modified flies spent less time looking for food than their unmodified peers did.
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