About the Authors

Alexandros Papachristoforou

papachri@legs.cnrs-gif.fr

Affiliations Laboratory of Animal Physiology, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, Laboratoire Evolution, Génomes, Spéciation, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France, Department of Agricultural Sciences, Biotechnology and Food Science, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus

Alexia Kagiava

Affiliations Laboratory of Animal Physiology, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, The Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics Neuroscience, Nicosia, Cyprus

Chrisovalantis Papaefthimiou

Affiliation Laboratory of Animal Physiology, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

Aikaterini Termentzi

Affiliation Department of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Nikolas Fokialakis

Affiliation Department of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Alexios-Leandros Skaltsounis

Affiliation Department of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Max Watkins

Affiliation Vita (Europe) Limited, Basingstoke, Hampshire, United Kingdom

Gérard Arnold

Affiliations Laboratoire Evolution, Génomes, Spéciation, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France

George Theophilidis

Affiliation Laboratory of Animal Physiology, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: the research was funded through Vita (Europe) Limited, a small UK company specialising only in honeybee health. MW works for this company. The original studies examined honeybee behaviour and they discovered the anaesthetisation properties of 2-H in the mammalian peripheral nervous systems as an extension to the honeybee biology work. Vita has now filed a patent on the potential use of 2-heptanone as a local anaesthetic (International Patent Application number: PCT/GB2012/050157). This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AP GT MW. Performed the experiments: AP GT CP GA AK MW ALS AT NF. Analyzed the data: AP GT CP GA AK MW ALS AT NF. Wrote the paper: AP GT CP GA.