Original title: Ant brain metabolomics reveals contrasting purine and amine dynamics in a reversible trematode-induced host manipulation
Lancet flukes need to reach grazing mammals, so they change infected ants’ behaviour: ants bite vegetation when it is cool, then later detach and return to their nests. Researchers measured chemicals in the brains of infected and uninfected ants across four phases. During attachment, infected ants had much more adenosine; during detachment, they had less tyramine and serotonin. The results point to different brain chemicals being linked to the two phases.
Imagine packing a bag for a day out, then coming home to change plans and repack for tomorrow. It is hard to explain the changing choices with one fixed rule when the right action depends on which part of the day you are in. In this paper, the changing plans stand for the ant’s attachment and detachment phases, while the different brain chemicals are linked to what the ant does in each phase.
The fluke needs an ant to be eaten by a grazing mammal, but the ant’s behaviour changes over time: it attaches to vegetation, then detaches and returns to its nest. The findings link these opposite phases to different brain chemicals, offering clues about how a parasite can steer its host without keeping it under control all the time.
The results show differences in brain chemicals between infected and uninfected field-collected ants during particular phases; they do not establish that those chemicals cause the behaviours. The proposed roles for adenosine and taurine are suggested by the findings, and the abstract does not report tests that directly change these chemical levels.
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Ant brain metabolomics reveals contrasting purine and amine dynamics in a reversible trematode-induced host manipulation — Chenhua Li, Cameron Goater, James D. Wasmuth — Royal Society Open Science — doi:10.1098/rsos.261298
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.