Study: Fruit flies drink their feelings, too

Humans aren't the only ones who soften the blow of romantic rejection with a drink (or four). 

A new study released in Science journal has found that male fruit flies who have been rejected by females drink significantly more alcohol than those that have mated freely. The research suggests that alcohol stimulates the flies' brains as a "reward" in a similar way as sex, and releases a brain chemical called neuropeptide F, BBC News reported.  

Human brains have a similar chemical, called neuropeptide Y, which may also link social triggers to behaviors such as heavy drinking and drug abuse, the scientists at the University of California, San Francisco found, according to Agence France Presse. 

"If neuropeptide Y turns out to be the transducer between the state of the psyche and the drive to abuse alcohol and drugs, one could develop therapies to inhibit neuropeptide Y receptors," said lead researcher Ulrike Heberlein, a professor of anatomy and neurology at UCSF, according to AFP. 

In the experiment, certain male flies were put in the same jars as already-mated females for one hour a day, three times a day, for four days, and were obviously spurned by the females, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Other male flies had six-hour mating sessions with multiple virgin females for four days.

More from GlobalPost: Study suggests some brains are wired for addiction

Then, all the male flies were put in a jar where they were allowed to choose food that was either plain or spiked with a 15 percent alcohol solution, according to Bloomberg. The sexually frustrated flies were much more likely to go for the alcohol. 

The scientists then paired thousands of other male flies with dead virgin females, so that they didn’t experience rejection but didn’t have sex either. Those flies also went for the alcohol.

Some rejected males were moved to a different jar, where they were allowed to interact with receptive females. After they had sex, their desire for alcohol declined, according to the Washington Post. 

“I think it’s a pretty good bet that it will translate to humans,” said Heberlein, the Washington Post reported. If so, “one can say we could now understand why a negative experience, such as a sexual rejection, could drive somebody to drink.”

“Reading this study is like looking back in time, to see the very origins of the reward circuit that drives fundamental behaviors like sex, eating and sleeping,” said Dr. Markus Heilig, the clinical director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told the New York Times.