Cocaine affects foraging behaviour and biogenic amine modulated behavioural reflexes in honey bees.

ABSTRACT: In humans and other mammals, drugs of abuse alter the function of biogenic amine pathways in the brain leading to the subjective experience of reward and euphoria. Biogenic amine pathways are involved in reward processing across diverse animal phyla, however whether cocaine acts on these neurochemical pathways to cause similar rewarding behavioural effects in animal phyla other than mammals is unclear. Previously, it has been shown that bees are more likely to dance (a signal of perceived reward) when returning from a sucrose feeder after cocaine treatment. Here we examined more broadly whether cocaine altered reward-related behaviour, and biogenic amine modulated behavioural responses in bees. Bees developed a preference for locations at which they received cocaine, and when foraging at l

SUBMITTER: Sovik E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4232840 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature