Australian scientists are using honeybees to study the effect of cocaine on the brain’s functioning.    Leading researchers at Australia’s Macquarie University and the Australian National University hope that the study will illuminate solutions for treating cocaine addiction in human beings.

Honeybees are an excellent choice to help reach conclusions about human beings, as previous studies have found that both sepcies are driven by a reward system in their brain and have their judgement impaired by the use of cocaine.

This study focuses on what is known as a “waggle dance” - a dance that bees do when they wish to communicate their success on collecting food.  The study has already found that those bees which were given cocaine danced “more enthusiastically” than the bees in the control group.

By establishing that the bees are acting in similar ways to human beings when they take cocaine, the scientists can begin to study the pathways the drug takes while moving throughout the system.  If this knowledge can be gained effectively, it can provide a tremendous amount of insight into how to treat individuals with a cocaine addiction who have not found success in drug rehab.

Tags: cocaine addiction, drug rehab

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 1:00 pm and is filed under cocaine addiction, drug addiction, drug rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.