Minority Atheists of Michigan

This story was very surprising.  I’d expect maybe monkey, chimps…even a dog to demonstrate common behaviors-but I never would’ve thought about using flies as test subjects for this type of study!  What am I referring to? An article recently posted entitled,  ‘Sex-starved flies drown their woes in alcohol‘:

(Edited, italics by MAM)

Guys, when your sweetheart says “No thanks” to sex, do you knock back a few stiff drinks to feel better? Turns out fruit flies do pretty much the same thing.

One by one, these eager Lotharios were put into a container with a female that had just mated. So she was really, really not interested in doing it again anytime soon. She would run away. She would kick the male. She would stick out her egg-laying organ to hold him at bay.

The male flies went through three hourlong sessions of this every day for four days, enough rejection to discourage them from trying any more.

After that experience, rejected flies were put in vials and given a choice of regular food or alcohol-laced food. They consistently went for the alcohol more than did the male flies that had just mated. In fact, they evidently got plastered.

Some rejected males were moved to a different environment, where groups of guys mingled with receptive females. After the guys had sex, their yen for alcohol declined.

The researchers also paired thousands of other male flies with dead virgin females, so that they didn’t experience rejection but didn’t have sex either. They still hit the sauce.

What’s going on here?

The researchers did other work that implicates a substance in the fly brain called NPF. They theorize that pleasurable activities like having sex boost the activity of brain circuits that use NPF, and that feels good. If a fly is denied sex, the system goes into deficit, driving the fly to seek other rewarding activities such as drinking alcohol.

UCSF

A fruit fly hits a feeder that has alcohol-laced food in it.

“I think it’s a pretty good bet that it will translate to humans,” said Ulrike Heberlein of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the research. If so, “one can say we could now understand why a negative experience, such as a sexual rejection, could drive somebody to drink.”

Humans and other vertebrates have a substance in their brain that’s similar to NPF, known as NPY. Previous research has shown a link between NPY and reward-related behavior such as food consumption. NPY has also been found to inhibit alcohol consumption. Moreover, mutations in the gene that controls NPY production have been linked to alcoholism as well as to decreased ability to deal with stressful situations.

Further research into NPF, NPY and similar brain chemicals could shed light on the biology of alcohol abuse and possibly point to new treatments, said Troy Zars of the University of Missouri in Columbia, who didn’t participate in the new work.

Fruit flies are a favorite lab animal in part because scientists have exquisite control over their biology. Here, the researchers were able to alter brain function to zero in on NPF’s role.

Whatever the relevance to humans, the work already pays off when Heberlein meets people at parties.

“It makes for wonderful conversation,” she said. “When you tell them this story, they just really can’t believe it.” source

 

This story is interesting as it his hilarious!  What are your thoughts on this story?