Research on the connections between gut microbes and the neurophysiology and behavior of their animal hosts has grown exponentially in just a few years. Most studies have focused on mammalian models as their relevance to human health is widely established. However, evidence is accumulating that insect behavior may be governed by molecular mechanisms that are partly homologous to those of mammals, and therefore relevant for the understanding of their behavioral dysfunctions. Social insects in particular may provide experimentally amenable models to disentangle the contributions of individual bacterial symbionts to the gut microbiota — brain axis. In this review, we summarize findings from recent research on the neurological and behavioral effects of the gut microbiota of insects and propose an integrated approach to unravel the extended behavioral phenotypes of gut microbes in the honey bee.

在短短几年内，对肠道微生物与其动物宿主的神经生理学和行为之间的联系的研究呈指数增长。大多数研究都集中在哺乳动物模型上，因为它们与人类健康的相关性已被广泛确立。但是，越来越多的证据表明，昆虫的行为可能受与哺乳动物的分子机制部分同源的分子机制支配，因此与了解其行为功能障碍有关。社交昆虫尤其可以提供实验上适合的模型，以区分单个细菌共生体对肠道菌群（脑轴）的贡献。在这篇评论中