FRUIT flies get a kick from cocaine, displaying the same behaviour as human
addicts.
Colleen McClung and Jay Hirsh of the University of Virginia in
Charlottesville exposed fruit flies to cocaine vapour and recorded their
behaviour on videotape. The flies twirled, compulsively repeated their motions
and bounced off walls. Like humans, they also got a stronger high if they kept
using the drug, a phenomenon called sensitisation that partly accounts for
cocaine鈥檚 addictiveness (Current Biology, vol 8, p 109).
Hirsh鈥檚 team is hunting down the genes that control sensitisation, a task far
easier and cheaper in flies than in mice or humans. 鈥淚t鈥檚 likely the same genes
are working in vertebrates,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e already seeing some promising
谤别蝉耻濒迟蝉.鈥�
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