cocaine has bees dancing and humans buzzing

[faustus]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cocain...9998526728.html

ANDREW BARRON gets a buzz watching dancers high on cocaine. To help unravel mysteries of the brain, the Macquarie University researcher supplies the drug to bees and then videos them strutting on their hive's "dance floor".

Despite the size differences, the senior lecturer in the department of brain behaviour and evolution said bee and human brains have similarities.

Both are wired to reward their owners by making them feel good when they achieve success. In humans, the sense of pleasure is linked to the brain's release of dopamine.

The bee's reward system is activated after a particularly good day seeking nectar or pollen. On arriving home the excited insect advertises its success to the colony by dancing, passing on details of its discoveries.

Cocaine, says Dr Barron, "hijacks" the human brain's reward system, making users feel more successful than they really are. "When you are on cocaine you think you are king of the world."

To help understand why, he uses a dropper to apply three-millionths of a gram of cocaine to the backs of bees before sending them out to hunt for food. "You need a steady hand," he said.

On their return, the bee dances are recorded and the images studied frame by frame to determine how the drug has influenced each insect's understanding of its own success.

"Dancing is not an automatic response," Dr Barron said. Only the discovery of a good food supply is advertised and the better the find, the faster the bee dances.

He found that bees high on cocaine were, compared with their sober control counterparts, twice as likely to dance on their return. Further, their dances were 20 to 25 per cent faster.

"They think they are more successful than they have really been. That is exactly what happens in people."

The increased urge to strut only appeared when bees had an audience. "If we kept them out of the dance floor, and out of the colony, they never ever danced."

This suggested they were being driven by an exaggerated sense of having news to announce. "They think they are the best foragers ever."

While bees quickly developed a tolerance for cocaine, they suffered severe withdrawal symptoms when their supply was cut.

Those on a steady supply had no problem learning to find new food sources. "But if we stopped the cocaine, sending them out cold turkey, learning rates crashed."

Dr Barron, whose findings appear in the Journal Of Experimental Biology, said obtaining approval for the research took five months. "I got a fair number of raised eyebrows." However, he predicted it would provide clues, at molecular levels, to how "brains are usurped by drugs, and how they adapt".

[Alchemica]

Thanks for sharing, great article. I wonder if this guy was a former inhabitant of the infamous "The Hive"...

[JDanger]

My girlfriend's dad knows this guy. Is it surprising it took only 5 months for approval, or are the authorities happy to allow dosing of animals? I'd love to have seen his proposal.

I also wonder how long the study took.

[Undergrounder]

Of course the authorities are happy to allow dosing of animals... more than 6 million animals are used in research studies in Australia every year, and most of them are being used in drug studies.

[FancyPants]

Buzz buzz buzz!!! I can pretend to be a bee, give it to me!

[JDanger]

Deary me, I wish I were a bee.