. Keeping with a bee theme this week, we have a study where scientists studied the effect of giving cocaine to honeybees on their dancing. In the early 2000s, we discovered that "in... insects, cocaine operates by blocking biogenic amine reuptake transports..., thereby disrupting biogenic amine signaling." (1) Because of the use for biogenic amine systems in insects, this means that cocaine would impact motor control, arousal, and reward processing.
The question this research centers on is whether or not cocaine is considered rewarding to insects in the way that many humans think small doses of it is. Dancing is what they used to test this as honeybee dancing is basically their language. They examined "the effects of chronic and acute treatment with low doses of cocaine on honey bee behavior and found honey bee responses that paralleled those of mammals."
Bu what were those responses? Well, there were five experiments done, each one providing a different result depending on what exactly they were testing for.
Experiment One: "Effects of cocaine and mianserin hydrochloride treatment on dance behavior."
Results one: Giving the bees cocaine increased the likelihood of the bees dancing. They still foraged the same way between dances, which "suggests that cocaine treatment within this dose range did not damage the ability to fly, locate the feeder and collect sucrose."
Most interestingly in this experiment was the fact that despite being dosed with cocaine, the dancing only occurred in a socially appropriate context.
Experiment Two: "Effect of cocaine on locomotor behavior." Results two: There was no change in locomotor behavior. What this showed was that it's not likely that cocaine changes behavior "via a general stimulation of motor pathways."
Experiment Three: "Effect of cocaine on sucrose responsiveness"
Results three: Being given cocaine actually increased the bee's response to sucrose but didn't increase how many bees were sensitized to water presentation.
Experiment Four: "Effect of cocaine on dances for pollen"
Results four: "Cocaine also increased the proportion of bees that performed at least one dance on return from a pollen feeder... This indicates that cocaine modulated responses to collected resources other than ingested sucrose."
Experiment Five: "Effect of chronic cocaine treatment and cocaine 'withdrawal' on learning"
Results five: Withdrawal from cocaine treatment didn't impact their learning performance.
My thoughts:
I really hope that the bees are okay, that's my biggest concern. It's interesting that this was done as an experiment, and I'm interested in how this information might have impacted the study of narcotics, or the impact of narcotics entering the soil and water. With any introduction of a foreign substance to the environment, we have to ask the question of what effect it could have on species in the area.
Sources:
Barron, A. B., Maleszka, R., Helliwell, P. G., & Robinson, G. E. (2009). Effects of cocaine on honey bee dance behaviour. The Journal of experimental biology, 212(Pt 2), 163–168. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.025361