Insect behavior is continuously constrained by energetic condition, but energetic state is not translated into action through a single hunger variable or a fixed endocrine switch. Evidence from Drosophila, mosquitoes, and lepidopteran larvae instead indicates distributed sensing of nutrient availability, peptide and hormonal modulation, competition among homeostatic and reproductive priorities, persistence of internal states, and context-dependent selection among actions. This article develops a proposed neurophysiological architecture in which energetic signals alter the weighting of sensory evidence, motivational priorities, and behavioral-state stability, while neuromodulators and hormones coordinate these effects across central and peripheral targets. Behavioral outcomes then modify subsequent state through sensory, ascending neural, and post-ingestive feedback. The framework distinguishes energetic state sensing from motivation, behavioral-state switching from motor choice, and current-action encoding from demonstrated causal feedback. It further treats sex, life stage, taxon, sensory context, and timescale as boundary conditions rather than nuisance variation. The resulting account does not posit a universal insect controller; instead, it organizes experimentally supported mechanisms into a testable, recursive state-and-action architecture whose cross-taxon validity remains to be established.
