Chimpanzee Reproductive and Physiological Aging

黑猩猩的生殖和生理衰老

• 批准号: 0717886
• 负责人: Kristen Hawkes
• 金额: $ 26.63万
• 依托单位: University of Utah
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-01 至 2014-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0717886&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Chimpanzee; Reproductive; Physiological; Aging

This project will monitor physiological changes with age in captive female chimpanzees and compare them with those reported for women. Comparisons include ovarian follicle counts, menstrual cycle periodicity, telomere lengths, adrenal steroid characteristics, and muscle strength. All measurements will be minimally invasive or postmortem (following deaths unrelated to this project). Chimpanzees are the living species phylogenetically closest and most genetically like humans. Their life histories are broadly similar; yet differ in key details, notably the duration of adult life spans. Free-ranging chimpanzees experience high adult mortalities, and rarely live past the age of forty. They are categorized as old while still ovulating. Women on the other hand often live several decades beyond their fertile years and remain vigorous past menopause. This distinct human longevity is not an artifact of recent human history. Though life expectancy at birth has nearly doubled in Western countries since the end of the 19th Century, that increase is largely due to reductions in infant and juvenile mortality. Demographic data for historical populations and for tribal and band communities indicate life expectancies less than forty-five years; nevertheless girls in these populations who survived to adulthood usually outlived their fertility. A third or more of the adult women were past their childbearing years. Comprehensive data on the details of physiological aging in chimpanzees are crucial for an explanation of these differences and the processes involved in the evolution of human longevity.Quantitative characterization of the aging phenotypes of captive female chimpanzees should be an urgent priority. Systematic measurement of aging physiology is difficult or impossible in the wild. The rearing, housing, and health experience of captives differs from the wild, but medical and social records can be used to assess the effects of these features of captivity. Tissue and record archives allow some measures to be recovered over decades tracking individual heterogeneity in aging trajectories. With the suspension of most captive breeding programs a dozen years ago, the projected size of the next cohort of adults is miniscule. Measuring changes with age on those now moving through adulthood will exploit a disappearing opportunity to clarify and focus evolutionary questions, and also contribute to successful management of the aging captives themselves. The project involves the collaboration of researchers who normally work with either humans or chimpanzees but not both, so it will promote the synergies needed to accurately characterize the similarities and differences in aging patterns between these two species. Student involvement will be emphasized. In order to reach multiple audiences that can build on project findings, results will be published in journals devoted to research on aging, fertility, primatology, and human evolution. Since data will be recorded on the same individual chimpanzees, co-variation in various physiological systems will contribute to hypotheses about mechanisms that produce similar variation in women.

该项目将监测圈养雌性黑猩猩随年龄的生理变化，并将其与报道的女性进行比较。 比较包括卵泡计数、月经周期、端粒长度、肾上腺类固醇特征和肌肉力量。 所有测量均为微创或尸检（与本项目无关的死亡后）。 黑猩猩是在遗传学上最接近和最像人类的物种。 它们的生活史大致相似;但在关键细节上有所不同，特别是成年寿命的持续时间。 自由放养的黑猩猩成年后的死亡率很高，很少能活过40岁。 他们被归类为老而仍在排卵。 另一方面，妇女往往比她们的生育年龄多活几十年，并在绝经后保持活力。 这种独特的人类寿命并不是近代人类历史的产物。 尽管自世纪末以来，西方国家的出生时预期寿命几乎翻了一番，但这一增长在很大程度上是由于婴儿和青少年死亡率的下降。历史人口以及部落和部落社区的人口统计数据表明，预期寿命不到45岁;然而，这些人口中活到成年的女孩通常都超过了生育能力。 三分之一或更多的成年妇女已经过了生育年龄。关于黑猩猩生理衰老细节的全面数据对于解释这些差异和人类长寿进化过程至关重要，对圈养雌性黑猩猩衰老表型的定量表征应该是当务之急。 在野外很难或不可能对衰老生理学进行系统的测量。 圈养动物的饲养、居住和健康体验与野生动物不同，但医疗和社会记录可用于评估圈养这些特征的影响。 组织和记录档案允许一些措施，以恢复几十年来跟踪个人异质性老化轨迹。随着十几年前大多数圈养繁殖计划的暂停，下一批成年人的预计规模微乎其微。 测量那些正在进入成年期的人随着年龄的变化，将利用一个正在消失的机会来澄清和关注进化问题，也有助于成功地管理衰老的俘虏本身。 该项目涉及通常与人类或黑猩猩（但不是两者）合作的研究人员的合作，因此它将促进准确描述这两个物种之间衰老模式的相似性和差异所需的协同作用。 学生的参与将得到重视。 为了接触到可以建立在项目研究结果基础上的多个受众，研究结果将发表在专门研究衰老、生育、灵长类动物学和人类进化的期刊上。 由于数据将记录在同一个黑猩猩个体上，各种生理系统的共同变异将有助于关于在女性中产生类似变异的机制的假设。