Table 1: Comparison of the 18 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) identified in the current study with three similar data sets. Grozinger et al. 2003 compared DEGs in Apis mellifera worker’s brain of three treatments: in the presence of the queen, in its absence, and when exposed to queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) ; Ma et al. 2009 compared DEGs in A. mellifera worker’s brain exposed to two different brood pheromones (EBO and BP); and Libbretch et al. 2018 compared DEGs in the brain of workers of the clonal raider ant Ooceraea biroi in the reproductive stage (absence of young larvae) and the non-reproductive stages (presence of young larvae). An overlap between the DEGs identified in these studies and the current study was indicated in the table with yes/no. Whenever data were available, we also provide the directionality of the expression.