Abstract The review explores recent advances in crustacean neurobiology, abstracting the field into three specializations for clarity: neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and molecular neurobiology. As these specializations have their own methodologies, they help to undertake this complex topic by running in parallel and meeting at the intersection of structure and function. Within neuroanatomy, the Malacostraca ground pattern serves as a guide to compare the recent discoveries in mapping the structural features of crustaceans using methods such as immunohistochemistry, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and micro-computed tomography. The hemiellipsoid/mushroom body homology is also reviewed. The neurophysiology section highlights key areas of focus, including the use of crustaceans as model organisms for studying behavioural or phenotypic adaptations to neurochemical exposure or the use of the stomatogastric ganglion as a sandbox environment for neural circuit robustness testing. The review also examines molecular neurobiology in crustaceans, emphasising progress in neuropeptidomics, RNA interference, transcriptome mining as well as de novo transcriptome assembly, and the development of innovative tools for crustacean neurobiological research. Together, these findings underscore the remarkable intricacy of crustacean neurobiology and highlight areas for future research, such as more electron microscopy (TEM and SEM) studies, a wider adoption of CRISPR-Cas9 in neurobiological studies, or a more diverse pool of organisms. These studies offer valuable insights into the evolutionary and functional parallels between crustaceans and insects and other Hexapoda, while providing frameworks to investigate neural adaptation and complexity in biological systems.
Pablo Vidal-Franco (2026) studied this question.