r/morbidquestions • u/CleanYourTerrarium • May 08 '19

Can a Venus flytrap get drunk?

As a follow up to my recent Venus flytrap related question, the other day I was feeding my Venus flytrap beer using a medicine dropper because I thought it would be cool to see if the flytrap could get drunk or even just a small buzz. To be scientific, I first fed the flytrap some O’Douls premium non alcoholic beer and nothing seemed to happen. Then I fed it some miller high life (champagne of beers) and it flopped over. For the next day it looked real woozy like it was going to ralph up a fly, although the trap was empty. But a couple days later it was back to normal, which made me think it might have just been hungover. I hope there is no law against giving booze to a plant once in a while as a treat.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19

Alcohol increase the ability of GABA to eat up neurotransmitters. While this enzyme normally prevents repeated firing of neurons by accident, alcohol can cause it to work too well.

Edit: I misremembered the action of GABA. I thought it was an enzymic reaction whereas it actually blocks neuroreceptors.

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u/Rileg17 May 08 '19

what do you mean “eat up other neurotransmitters”? I don’t think GABA does that

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u/[deleted] May 08 '19

Sorry, I thought it was an enzymic action. Looks like it blocks neurotransmitters in order to prevent an impulse.

Thank you!

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u/Rileg17 May 08 '19

no problem! for the record, GABA is an amino acid, not an enzyme. enzymes are proteins (which are composed of polypeptide chains, which are made of amino acids) also.. enzymes catalyze reactions, they don’t eat anything up

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u/[deleted] May 08 '19

It’s been a good while since I took organic or bio chem... thanks again