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Patterson SK, Petersen RM, Brent LJN, Snyder-Mackler N, Lea AJ, Higham JP. Natural Animal Populations as Model Systems for Understanding Early Life Adversity Effects on Aging. Integr Comp Biol 2023; 63:681-692. [PMID: 37279895 PMCID: PMC10503476 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icad058] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2023] [Revised: 04/25/2023] [Accepted: 05/30/2023] [Indexed: 06/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Adverse experiences in early life are associated with aging-related disease risk and mortality across many species. In humans, confounding factors, as well as the difficulty of directly measuring experiences and outcomes from birth till death, make it challenging to identify how early life adversity impacts aging and health. These challenges can be mitigated, in part, through the study of non-human animals, which are exposed to parallel forms of adversity and can age similarly to humans. Furthermore, studying the links between early life adversity and aging in natural populations of non-human animals provides an excellent opportunity to better understand the social and ecological pressures that shaped the evolution of early life sensitivities. Here, we highlight ongoing and future research directions that we believe will most effectively contribute to our understanding of the evolution of early life sensitivities and their repercussions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sam K Patterson
- Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York City, 10003, USA
| | - Rachel M Petersen
- Department of Biological Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 37232, USA
| | - Lauren J N Brent
- Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, United Kingdom
| | - Noah Snyder-Mackler
- School of Life Sciences, Center for Evolution and Medicine, and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, 85281, USA
| | - Amanda J Lea
- Department of Biological Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 37232, USA
- Child and Brain Development Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Study, Toronto, M5G 1M1, Canada
| | - James P Higham
- Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York City, 10003, USA
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Dettmer AM, Chusyd DE. Early life adversities and lifelong health outcomes: A review of the literature on large, social, long-lived nonhuman mammals. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2023; 152:105297. [PMID: 37391110 PMCID: PMC10529948 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105297] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Revised: 06/22/2023] [Accepted: 06/26/2023] [Indexed: 07/02/2023]
Abstract
Social nonhuman animals are powerful models for studying underlying factors related to lifelong health outcomes following early life adversities (ELAs). ELAs can be linked to lifelong health outcomes depending on the species, system, sensitive developmental periods, and biological pathways. This review focuses on the literature surrounding ELAs and lifelong health outcomes in large, social, relatively long-lived nonhuman mammals including nonhuman primates, canids, hyenas, elephants, ungulates, and cetaceans. These mammals, like humans but unlike the most-studied rodent models, have longer life histories, complex social structures, larger brains, and comparable stress and reproductive physiology. Collectively, these features make them compelling models for comparative aging research. We review studies of caregiver, social, and ecological ELAs, often in tandem, in these mammals. We consider experimental and observational studies and what each has contributed to our knowledge of health across the lifespan. We demonstrate the continued and expanded need for comparative research to inform about the social determinants of health and aging in both humans and nonhuman animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amanda M Dettmer
- Yale Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, 230 S. Frontage Rd., New Haven, CT, USA.
| | - Daniella E Chusyd
- Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Indiana University Bloomington, 1025 E. 7th St., Bloomington, IN, USA; Department of Health and Wellness Design, Indiana University Bloomington, 1025 E. 7th St., Bloomington, IN, USA
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Morrison RE, Eckardt W, Stoinski TS, Rosenbaum S. Cumulative early-life adversity does not predict reduced adult longevity in wild gorillas. Curr Biol 2023; 33:2307-2314.e4. [PMID: 37192615 PMCID: PMC10264970 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2022] [Revised: 02/24/2023] [Accepted: 04/21/2023] [Indexed: 05/18/2023]
Abstract
Extensive research across fields has repeatedly confirmed that early-life adversity (ELA) is a major selective force for many taxa, in part via its ties to adult health and longevity.1,2,3 Negative effects of ELA on adult outcomes have been documented in a wide range of species, from fish to birds to humans.4 We used 55 years of long-term data collected on 253 wild mountain gorillas to examine the effects of six putative sources of ELA on survival, both individually and cumulatively. Although cumulative ELA was associated with high mortality in early life, we found no evidence that it had detrimental consequences for survival later in life. Experiencing three or more forms of ELA was associated with greater longevity, with a 70% reduction in the risk of death across adulthood, driven specifically by greater longevity in males. Although this higher survival in later life is likely a consequence of sex-specific viability selection5 during early life due to the immediate mortality consequences of adverse experiences, patterns in our data also suggest that gorillas have significant resilience to ELA. Our findings demonstrate that the detrimental consequences of ELA on later life survival are not universal, and indeed largely absent in one of humans' closest living relatives. This raises important questions about the biological roots of sensitivity to early experiences and the protective mechanisms that contribute to resiliency in gorillas, which could be critical for understanding how best to encourage similar resiliency to early-life shocks in humans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robin E Morrison
- Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, PO Box 105, Musanze, Rwanda; Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK.
| | | | | | - Stacy Rosenbaum
- Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
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4
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Turner SE, Fedigan LM, Joyce MM, Matthews HD, Moriarity RJ, Nobuhara H, Nobuhara T, Stewart BM, Shimizu K. Mothers of disabled infants had higher cortisol levels in a free-ranging group of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). Am J Primatol 2023:e23500. [PMID: 37189289 DOI: 10.1002/ajp.23500] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2022] [Revised: 04/15/2023] [Accepted: 04/29/2023] [Indexed: 05/17/2023]
Abstract
Glucocorticoids (GCs) are hormones released in response to stressors and can provide insight into an organism's physiological well-being. Experiencing chronic challenges to homeostasis is associated with significant deviations from baseline fecal GCs (fGCs) in many species, providing a noninvasive biomarker for assessing stress. In the group of free-ranging Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) at the Awajishima Monkey Center in Japan, ~17% have congenital limb malformations. We collected 646 fecal samples from 27 females over three consecutive birth seasons (May-August) and analyzed them using enzyme immunoassay to extract fGCs. We explored the relationship between fGC levels and individual (physical impairment and reproductive status), social (dominance rank and availability of kin for social support), and ecological variables (exposure to potential predators, rainfall, and wild fruit availability). A disabled infant was associated significantly with higher fGC in the mother; however, physical impairment in adult females was not significantly related to fGC levels. Females with higher dominance rank had significantly lower fGC levels than lower ranking females. Other factors did not relate significantly to fGC. These results suggest that providing care that meets the support needs of disabled infants poses a physiological challenge for mothers and suggests that physically impaired adults are able to effectively compensate for their disabilities with behavioral plasticity. Once an individual with congenital limb malformations survives infancy through their mother's care, physical impairment does not appear to influence fGC values, while social variables like dominance rank significantly influenced cortisol values in free-ranging female Japanese macaques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah E Turner
- Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Linda M Fedigan
- Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Megan M Joyce
- Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - H Damon Matthews
- Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Robert J Moriarity
- School of Occupational and Public Health, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | | | | | - Brogan M Stewart
- Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Keiko Shimizu
- Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Okayama University of Science, Okayama, Japan
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Lee DS, Kang YHR, Ruiz-Lambides AV, Higham JP. The observed pattern and hidden process of female reproductive trajectories across the life span in a non-human primate. J Anim Ecol 2021; 90:2901-2914. [PMID: 34541669 DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.13590] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2021] [Accepted: 09/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Age-specific fertility trajectories are fundamental to understanding population structure and the evolutionary ecology of diverse life histories. However, characterizing reproductive ageing has been difficult with cross-sectional data, where senescence especially late in life can be confounded by selective disappearance. Addressing such challenge requires longitudinal data tracking the reproductive life span of known individuals, but such data are rare, especially for very long-lived species such as primates. We analyse the entire life span trajectory of annual fertility, from reproductive maturity to death, for 673 free-ranging female rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta, on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico. Using generalized linear mixed-effects models (GLMMs), we first tested if time to death explains the ageing pattern independently of and additionally to chronological age, and if so, whether there is interaction between them. While GLMM captures the patterns in the data well, it is not a generative model. For example, given the GLMM and an individual's reproductive trajectory up to a given age, we cannot directly predict the probability of reproduction or death in the next year. For this reason, we further fitted a hidden Markov chain model (HMM) which allows just such a prediction, and additionally helps infer the process underlying the observed trajectory. We show that, after accounting for individual differences in fertility, reproductive ageing exhibits both age-dependent decline and also an abrupt terminal decline independently of age at death. We infer from the HMM that the underlying process of reproductive trajectory is where individuals cycle between reproductive bouts until they enter an irreversible frail condition that constrains fertility. The findings provide valuable insights into the longitudinal progression of reproductive trajectories in primates, by revealing both age-dependent and age-independent patterns and processes of ageing, and contribute to a growing body of literature on reproductive ageing and senescence across animal taxa.
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Affiliation(s)
- D Susie Lee
- Population Health, Max-Planck-Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.,Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.,New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, NY, USA
| | - Yul H R Kang
- Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | | | - James P Higham
- Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.,New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, NY, USA
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Agarwal SC. What is normal bone health? A bioarchaeological perspective on meaningful measures and interpretations of bone strength, loss, and aging. Am J Hum Biol 2021; 33:e23647. [PMID: 34272787 DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.23647] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2020] [Revised: 06/28/2021] [Accepted: 06/29/2021] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Bioarchaeological (the study of archeological human remains together with contextual and documentary evidence) offers a unique vantage point to examine variation in skeletal morphology related to influences such as activity, disease, and nutrition. The human skeleton is composed of a dynamic tissue that is forged by biocultural factors over the entire life course, providing a record of individual, and community history. Various aspects of adult bone health, particularly bone maintenance and loss and the associated skeletal disease osteoporosis, have been examined in numerous past populations. The anthropological study of bone loss has traditionally focused on the signature of postmenopausal aging, costs of reproduction, and fragility in females. The a priori expectation of normative sex-related bone loss/fragility in bioanthropological studies illustrates the wider gender-ideological bias that continues in research design and data analysis in the field. Contextualized data on bone maintenance and aging in the archeological record show that patterns of bone loss do not constitute predictable consequences of aging or biological sex. Instead, the critical examination of bioarchaeological data highlights the complex and changing processes that craft the human body over the life course, and calls for us to question the ideal or "normal" range of bone quantity and quality in the human skeleton, and to critically reflect on what measures are actually biologically and/or socially meaningful.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabrina C Agarwal
- Department of Anthropology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
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Rothwell ES, Freire-Cobo C, Varghese M, Edwards M, Janssen WGM, Hof PR, Lacreuse A. The marmoset as an important primate model for longitudinal studies of neurocognitive aging. Am J Primatol 2021; 83:e23271. [PMID: 34018622 DOI: 10.1002/ajp.23271] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2021] [Revised: 04/18/2021] [Accepted: 05/06/2021] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
Age-related cognitive decline has been extensively studied in humans, but the majority of research designs are cross-sectional and compare across younger and older adults. Longitudinal studies are necessary to capture variability in cognitive aging trajectories but are difficult to carry out in humans and long-lived nonhuman primates. Marmosets are an ideal primate model for neurocognitive aging as their naturally short lifespan facilitates longitudinal designs. In a longitudinal study of marmosets tested on reversal learning starting in middle-age, we found that, on average, the group of marmosets declined in cognitive performance around 8 years of age. However, we found highly variable patterns of cognitive aging trajectories across individuals. Preliminary analyses of brain tissues from this cohort also show highly variable degrees of neuropathology. Future work will tie together behavioral trajectories with brain pathology and provide a window into the factors that predict age-related cognitive decline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily S Rothwell
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Carmen Freire-Cobo
- Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA
| | - Merina Varghese
- Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA
| | - Mélise Edwards
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
| | - William G M Janssen
- Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA
| | - Patrick R Hof
- Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.,Ronald M. Loeb Center for Alzheimer's Disease, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA
| | - Agnès Lacreuse
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
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