Brain metabolic phenotyping in aggressive honey bees provides new insights into traumatic brain injury

Our goal is to discover interventions that interrupt and reverse disease-related declines in neuronal mitochondrial respiration, improving outcomes for a range of neurodegenerative conditions. Because mitochondrial metabolism is a complex web of interconnected pathways, interventions developed using traditional models have largely failed to improve disease outcomes in human subjects. Creative, systems-level approaches (e.g., metabolomics) are needed to identify novel methods to stabilize neuronal mitochondria. We will use the honey bee to identify promising methods to improve mitochondrial function, and test these approaches in a traditional mouse model of neurodegenerative disease. This approach is possible because the building blocks of neuronal metabolism are nearly identical between bees and mammals; our team has already shown that interventions that modulate mitochondrial respiration in mammals behave similarly in bees.