Drug-seeking behavior in ants: A new model for morphine-induced reward, sensitization, self-administration and addiction

Historically, almost all addiction research has been performed with mammals. However, recently remarkable similarities between invertebrates and mammals behavioral responses to drugs of abuse have been published. Examining invertebrate systems allows the study of the fundamental underpinnings governing natural reward and behavior. Studies investigating ethanol consumption in Drosophila and Honeybees have established features of alcohol abuse, however these studies have confound the presence of drug-seeking behavior with self-administration. Because ants are behaviorally complex animals with unique foraging, navigation, and seeking abilities, we can use them as a new model of addiction. Their ability to learn feeding site and reliably visit the locations repeated make them induce addictive behaviors. In this experiment, we establish ants as an analogous model to vertebrate for drug-seeking behavior and self-administrations addiction to opiates. We establishing the first-ever invertebrate model to elicit opiate self-administration, and demonstrating active seeking of a drug of abuse in the absence of any other natural reward in a non-mammalian species for the first time.