Related Experiment Videos
Infant abuse and neglect: lessons from the primate laboratory
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver 80626.
Insights
Nonhuman primate studies reveal that early social separation can cause lasting behavioral and immunological changes in young monkeys. These findings suggest primates serve as relevant models for understanding child abuse and neglect effects.
Area of Science:
- Primate research
- Developmental psychology
- Immunology
Background:
- Understanding the long-term effects of early life adversity is crucial for child welfare.
- Nonhuman primates offer unique experimental models to study developmental impacts of altered early experiences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review how nonhuman primate research informs our understanding of child abuse and neglect.
- To examine the persistent effects of early social separation in pigtail macaques (M. nemestrina).
Main Methods:
- Review of existing research on nonhuman primates and child maltreatment.
- Description of four studies involving social separation in infant M. nemestrina.
- Longitudinal assessment of behavioral and immunological functioning up to six years post-separation.
Main Results:
- Infant social separation in M. nemestrina was linked to persistent changes in social behavior.
- Immunological functioning also showed lasting alterations following early social separation.
- These effects were observed into late adolescence and early adulthood in the studied primates.
Conclusions:
- Nonhuman primates serve as valuable animal models for studying the consequences of child abuse and neglect.
- Early life experiences, even brief separations, can have profound and enduring impacts on development.
- Primate models facilitate experimental investigation into the mechanisms underlying developmental psychopathology related to maltreatment.
Abstract:
We review the several areas in which research on nonhuman primates contributes to our understanding of child abuse and neglect in human children. One special advantage of primate studies is that the experimental method can be utilized to examine the short- and long-term effects of relatively well-defined and circumscribed alterations in early experience and the manner in which they can affect later behavioral and physiological development. Four studies in M. nemestrina (pigtail) monkeys are described in which relatively short social separation experiences in infancy were associated with evidence of persistent changes in certain aspects of social behavioral functioning and immunological functioning, up to six years later, when the previously separated animals were in late adolescence or early adulthood. Such findings suggest that nonhuman primates may be used as animal model systems with considerable relevance to issues surrounding human child abuse and neglect.