Dr Andrew Barron
Ne
uroethology, Macquarie University
Andrew’s research is unravelling how drugs damage the brain and is revealing new avenues to prevent drug dependence. By studying the honey bee, Andrew has discovered that honey bees respond to cocaine just like humans do. This implies that the brain systems attacked by drugs through abuse include those responsible for reward processing and neural adaptation, and evolved early in evolutionary times. His work also uses the bee to examine the role of epigenetics (inherited changes in appearance that are not caused by genetics) in long term memory.