Naked mole-rats have long puzzled biologists with their striking eusocial structure, where most adults remain reproductively suppressed while a queen controls the colony’s future. Now, a new study identifies a chemical “queen odour” that links social status to endocrine control, revealing a mammalian analogue to insect queen pheromones.

The molecule, termed IPM, is enriched by the queen and acts as the key mediator of reproductive suppression in non-breeding females. When IPM is present, circulating prolactin rises while progesterone is suppressed, locking the colony into a stable reproductive hierarchy characterized by reduced conflict and maintained group cohesion.

Crucially, the team connects this behavioural outcome to the brain. Using multiple approaches—including non-invasive functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI)—they show that IPM provokes strong activation of olfactory neurons and central neural circuits. This provides a neural substrate for how a chemical cue can trigger colony-wide physiological change, rather than relying on social learning or passive association.

The experiments also clarify sensory routing. Ablating olfaction abolishes aggression initiation and lowers prolactin levels, directly tying IPM detection to reproductive suppression. While the findings are consistent with sensing through the main olfactory epithelium, the authors note that the vomeronasal system may still contribute.

Queen removal normally destabilizes colonies, leading to aggression, reproductive competition, prolactin decline, and, in extreme cases, mortality. Yet when IPM is added to queenless bedding, the colony remains stable for months. During this period, fecal progesterone metabolite levels stay low, indicating sustained ovarian quiescence alongside elevated prolactin.

The study also addresses a longstanding paradox: transferring soiled bedding and urine from parent colonies fails to maintain suppression in isolated individuals. The authors propose that IPM’s chemistry helps explain this discrepancy. As a long-chain fatty acid ester with low volatility, IPM may persist within the colony environment but fail to travel effectively over distance or survive transfer pathways that preferentially carry other chemicals.

Comparative work extends beyond naked mole-rats. IPM is detected in breeding females of four additional Fukomys species. Although reproductive suppression mechanisms may differ across species, the presence of a similar queen-linked odorant suggests convergent chemical strategies for managing reproductive skew in eusocial mammals.

Overall, the research reframes reproduction control as a chemosensory-to-endocrine pathway: IPM activates olfactory–hypothalamic signalling, elevating prolactin and inhibiting GnRH release. This “social hormone” model offers a new principle for social evolution—chemical cues can synchronize behaviour and physiology at the scale of an entire mammal colony.

Subject of Research: Reproductive suppression and social hierarchy in eusocial mammals (naked mole-rats and related Fukomys species)

Article Title: A queen odour mediates reproductive suppression in a eusocial mammal

Article References:

Khallaf, M.A., Hart, D.W., Luo, W. et al. A queen odour mediates reproductive suppression in a eusocial mammal.
Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10772-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10772-5

Keywords: IPM; queen odour; reproductive suppression; prolactin; GnRH; olfaction; eusociality; functional ultrasound imaging; Fukomys

Neuroscientists have long believed that language processing was only found in regions of the brain’s left hemisphere, including the well-known Broca’s area. However, new evidence suggests the brain’s language network is far more widespread than previously thought. 

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) analyzed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans from 772 participants and identified 17 additional brain regions involved in language comprehension. These newly discovered areas are distributed across the brain, including the cerebellum, hippocampus, amygdala, and several regions of the cerebral cortex. In total, this accounts for five percent of the adult brain volume (roughly the size of a large strawberry). 

“Even though there are all these distant components, it’s pretty restricted in terms of volume. You don’t need that much of the brain to do language,” says senior author Evelina Fedorenko, an MIT associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, in a statement. 

Locating the Brain’s Hidden Language Centers

To find these hidden language-related regions in the brain, the researchers revisited years of brain imaging data collected since 2013. Additionally, participants completed a standard “language localizer” task, during which they read or listened to meaningful sentences and sequences of meaningless nonwords. By comparing brain activity between these two conditions, the research team identified regions that responded more strongly to language.

“When we initially started looking at language, in the first couple of papers, I tried to be comprehensive and include anything that seemed consistent across participants, and there was a huge amount of resistance,” said Fedorenko. “People would say things like, ‘Well, we know those are not language areas, so please focus on the language areas.’”

The team decided to adopt a more flexible statistical approach to detect weaker signals and identify previously overlooked language-sensitive regions beyond the classical language areas. They then compared these regions’ responses during a spatial working memory task to distinguish language-specific areas from those involved in what would be considered general cognitive functions.

Cerebellum Discoveries

Interestingly, five of the newly identified language regions are located in the cerebellum, a structure traditionally associated with movement and coordination. Some of these cerebellar regions were also active during non-language tasks, suggesting they may help integrate information across different brain systems rather than process language alone.

“It’s a very simple paradigm that lets you identify this core language system in individual brains,” says MIT postdoc Agata Wolna, the lead author of the paper.

Additional language-sensitive regions were identified in the hippocampus and amygdala, areas better known for their roles in memory and emotion. Their involvement suggests that understanding language may rely more on integrating memory, emotional context, and higher-order cognitive functions than previously understood in science.

“We always see this frontal temporal network, but there’s quite a lot of evidence that there are other regions that are also critical for language processing,” said Wolna. “By using a laxer threshold and zooming in on areas with weak MRI signal, we tried to maximize the chances of finding small and weakly responsive regions outside of this left frontal temporal system.”

The findings challenge long-held assumptions about the brain’s organization and can open new avenues for research into how language processing is understood in neuroscience.

The recent study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. 

Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.