Abstract: The silkworm, Bombyx mori, has a ventral nerve cordtype nervous system, which is more simple in structure than that of vertebrates; however, the simple system controls the complex behavior of the silkworm. Therefore, B. mori is an ideal model animal for neurobiology study. The silkworm nervous system, including the central nervous system, the peripheral nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system, plays a role in the regulation of sight, smell, feeding, cocooning, mating, excretion and other life activities of the silkworm by transferring signals. The genes coding for neurotransmitters, e.g., acetylcholine, γ-aminobutyric acid and dopamine, and neuropeptides, e.g., prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH) and diapause hormone (DH), were found in the nervous system of the silkworm. The development of the silkworm nervous system is regulated by a variety of genes and MicroRNA, such as bmo-miR-92. At present, the main research methods for silkworm nervous system include electroantennogram, immunocytochemistry, transgenic methods, neuroinformatics, and three-dimensional reconstructions. The research on silkworm nervous system will help to illuminate the signal transmission mechanisms of nervous system and the formation mechanisms of biological neural networks.

Key words: Bombyx mori, nervous system, neurotransmitter, neuropeptide, neural development