Researchers got fruit flies hooked on cocaine – here’s what they learned

Fruit flies are interesting little creatures. On top of being extremely invasive and annoying to deal with, they also have a bit of a super … The post Researchers got fruit flies hooked on cocaine – here’s what they learned appeared first on BGR.

Jun 4, 2025 - 00:20

Researchers got fruit flies hooked on cocaine – here’s what they learned

Fruit flies are interesting little creatures. On top of being extremely invasive and annoying to deal with, they also have a bit of a super power when it comes to drugs: they don’t like cocaine for any reason. That’s a bit of of a problem for scientists as fruit flies are a easy to use when conducting experiments.

Thankfully, genetic modification has come a long way, especially in recent years. Not only have we managed to genetically modify mosquitoes in the past, but researchers have also made great strides in “reviving” the dire wolf and woolly mammoths. And, now they’ve even genetically modified these little pests to create cocaine-addicted fruit flies.

Now why would we want to get these little annoying pests addicted to cocaine? Well, turns out, fruit flies are great for experimenting because they have about 75% of the human genes known to be involved in disease. Because of that, these little guys have been exceptionally helpful in discovering the biology behind several substance dependencies.

This made fruit flies a great option for learning more about cocaine addiction in humans. However, no matter what they tried, the researchers couldn’t get the fruit flies to choose water laced with cocaine. Despite being exposed to it previously, the fruit flies consistently chose the clean option when given the choice between sugar water and sugar water laced with cocaine.

According to the researcher’s findings, which they’ve published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the flies likely avoided the cocaine in response to their sense of taste. That’s because insects are evolutionarily primed to avoid plant toxins, which cocaine is a prime example of. And because they have taste receptors in their hands, they can taste things before it gets to their mouth.

So the researchers went looking for a way to turn off that safety switch. They watched the activity of the flies’ sensory nerves to see how they would respond to the taste of the drug. then, they started messing around with the genetics of the fruit fly.

From there, they were able to get the flies to start partaking in cocaine, but only in small dosages. However, after being exposed, the flies quickly developed a preference. It only took 16 hours for them to become addicted to cocaine, the researchers note.

Now that scientists can study the process of cocaine addiction in the fruit flies, they are hopeful it will unlock new insights into how this drug affects humans, too. They hope to identify what they call risk genes, which could possibly be targets of treatment to help combat addiction.

Cocaine-addicted fruit flies are a long way from the possible cocaine sharks that we saw reports about back in 2023, of course. At least with this addiction scientists have something huge to gain.

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Researchers got fruit flies hooked on cocaine – here’s what they learned originally appeared on BGR.com on Tue, 3 Jun 2025 at 11:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.