The Vervet Research Colony as Biomedical Resource

项目总结 长尾猴(ChlorOcean Bus AtheiopsSabaeus)会发生与年龄相关的淀粉样蛋白病变，这种病变与 人类阿尔茨海默病的早期阶段。海马区代谢低下，体积缩小。 人类遗忘性轻度认知障碍，一种以日常记忆受损为特征的疾病 通常先于阿尔茨海默病的发展，但年龄对Vervets的海马体功能的影响是 不知道。确定年龄和阿尔茨海默病相关生物标记物如何与海马体相关 马鞭草的结构和功能将极大地提高该物种作为年龄模型的效用- 相关的认知障碍和早期阿尔茨海默病。作为第一个探索性的步骤 该应用程序的目标是开发一种在老化的Vervets中表征海马体结构和功能的方法 连续跟踪系统用于监测Vervet Research中群居Vervets的运动行为 维克森林的殖民地。这将使我们能够纵向监控家庭环境中的位置 长时间(几周到几个月)，这将使我们能够确定在衰老过程中的运动行为 Vervets在人类中显示出与痴呆症相关的“漫游”模式。我们还将衡量 海马体体积与结构MRI和代谢活性的FDG-PET成像，以及阿尔茨海默氏症- 相关的血液生物标记物。这将使我们能够探索房子周围的任何运动特征 根据海马体体积、葡萄糖代谢率或液体对个体进行区分 阿尔茨海默病的生物标志物。因为目前海马区功能的行为读数主要是 通过长时间的认知测试获得，这是资源密集型的，而且不适用于 灵长类动物群体，这一建议有可能发现行为测量，可以连续 在几个月到几年的时间内实时获取和分析海马区功能障碍的信号 与马鞭猴的衰老和神经病理学有关。这将为使用这种模式物种打开新的可能性 研究可能抵消人类阿尔茨海默氏症病理发展的干预措施 疾病的各个阶段。

PROJECT SUMMARY Vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus) develop age-related amyloid pathology that resembles very early stages of Alzheimer's disease in humans. Hippocampal hypometabolism and volume reduction occur in amnestic mild cognitive impairment in humans, a condition characterized by impaired everyday memory which often precedes development of Alzheimer's disease, but the effect of age on hippocampal function in vervets is not known. Determining how age and Alzheimer's-related biomarkers are associated with hippocampal structure and function in vervets would dramatically enhance the utility of this species as a model for age- related cognitive impairments and early-stage Alzheimer's disease. As a first, exploratory step towards characterizing hippocampal structure and function in aging vervets, the goal of this application is to develop a continuous tracking system to monitor locomotor behavior in group-housed vervets in the Vervet Research Colony at Wake Forest. This will allow us to monitor position within the home environment longitudinally for long periods of time (weeks to months) and will allow us to determine whether locomotor behavior in aging vervets displays patterns characteristic of dementia-associated "wandering" in humans. We will also measure hippocampal volume with structural MRI and metabolic activity with FDG-PET imaging, and Alzheimer's- related blood biomarkers. This will allow us to explore whether any features of movement around the home enclosure discriminate between individuals based on hippocampal volume, glucose metabolic rate, or fluid biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease. Because behavioral readouts of hippocampal function currently are mainly obtained through prolonged cognitive testing, which is resource-intensive and impractical to apply across large groups of primates, this proposal has the potential to uncover behavioral measures that can be continuously acquired and analyzed in real time and over a period of months to years that signal hippocampal dysfunction with aging and neuropathology in vervet monkeys. This will open new possibilities for using this model species to study interventions that may offset the development of Alzheimer's pathology in humans during the earliest phases of the disease.