BIRDS OF A FEATHER

THE amazing things birds could teach us about human health. this week: Pigeons and anxiety disorders. IT MAY be surprising but, since the Sixties, pigeons have played a vital role in the development of drugs to treat anxiety.

The birds were first used by researchers at Harvard University to show that the brain chemical serotonin was involved in anxiety.

That research culminated in the development of the antianxiety drug buspirone, which was also tested on pigeons.

‘ In contrast to the rat, the pigeon promises to be a useful species in the [development] of new anxiety drugs,’ the researchers wrote in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

Carmine Pariante, a professor of biological psychiatry at King’s College London, says: ‘Birds have been used for more than 100 years for research on memory and learning, such as anxiety disorders.’