Mechanisms and Consequences of Social Connectedness in a Wild Primate Population

野生灵长类动物群体社会联系的机制和后果

• 批准号: 7728326
• 负责人: Susan C. Alberts
• 金额: $ 36.86万
• 依托单位: DUKE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-15 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7728326
• 关键词: Accounting; Adult; Age; Aging; Aging-Related Process; Anabolism; Analysis of Variance; Animal Model; Animals; Area; Behavioral; Biological; Candidate Disease Gene; Characteristics; Data; Data Set; Elderly; Environment; Face; Female; Genes; Genetic; Genetic Variation; Glucocorticoids; Goals; Health; Heterogeneity; Hormones; Human; Individual; Infant; Intervention; Investigation; Kenya; Life; Life Cycle Stages; Light; Longevity; Measures; Modeling; Outcome; Papio; Pathway interactions; Pattern; Personal Satisfaction; Phenotype; Physical environment; Physiological; Population; Population Study; Primates; Process; Relative (related person); Reproductive Health; Research; Research Personnel; Risk; Series; Serotonin; Shapes; Social Behavior; Social Impacts; Social Network; Social Welfare; Social isolation; Source; Staging; Stress; System; Testing; Time; Variant; Wild Animals; Work; age related; base; comparative; density; experience; functional decline; genome wide association study; insight; interest; male; member; middle age; mortality; nonhuman primate; public health relevance; reproductive; senescence; social; social group; trait

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Studies of aging in wild animal populations, especially in our primate relatives, offer a unique set of potential benefits for understanding the processes and patterns governing human aging. The comparative perspective that animal models provide can both bring to light general principles and mechanisms that govern the aging process across species, and can highlight human-specific characteristics of aging. Additionally, in some cases datasets that are extremely difficult to gather in humans (such as fine-scaled behavioral data in natural social settings) are more readily obtainable in wild primate populations. However, despite keen interest in aging as a human health concern and the enormous progress in this area in recent decades, patterns of aging in wild animals - age-related changes not just in survival, but also in social behavior, hormone profiles, and other aspects of health and functioning - remain almost entirely undescribed. Our detailed, longitudinal data from a population of wild baboons in southern Kenya provides clear evidence both that senescence occurs, and that considerable variance among individuals is seen both in lifespan and in functional declines with age. Baboons live in stable social groups, and individuals within groups share common environments, so physical and demographic differences alone cannot account for the observed variance in the aging process and in lifespan. However, the quality and robustness of individual social relationships do vary among individuals, both within and between social groups, and this variation has both physiological and functional consequences for baboons. These results have brought social connectedness to the foreground in our ongoing, integrative analysis of variance in lifetime outcomes in this population, and have set the stage for a detailed investigation of the dynamics of social connectedness and its relationship to aging. The goals of the proposed work are to identify the components, physiological correlates, and consequences of social connectedness in the context of aging, and to identify genetic and environmental sources of variance in social connectedness. We will test the hypotheses that, in wild nonhuman primates as in humans, social connectedness is a predictor of health and well being throughout the life course; that this effect is independent of density; and that social connectedness declines with age. We will then investigate the relationship between genetic variation in a set of known biological pathways and social connectedness phenotypes. Finally, we will integrate the effects of genetic variation and environmental variation into a life span approach, using a time-series model. We will ask whether the effects that occur in earlier stages of life propagate into late life, or if social connectedness in late life is a relatively independent phenomenon. This analysis will aid in identifying stages during the life course in which prediction of and/or intervention in aging- related outcomes may be most fruitful. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed research will investigate health and well being during aging in a natural population of wild primates, which are closely related to humans and share key similarities, but also important differences. The research will specifically examine the contribution of social connectedness to aging-related outcomes in a natural setting, as well as the genetic and environmental contributors to social connectedness itself. This will offer potential benefits for human health by illuminating important opportunities for, and constraints on, alleviating age- related declines in human health and survival.

描述（由申请人提供）：野生动物种群的衰老研究，特别是在我们的灵长类亲属中，为了解人类衰老的过程和模式提供了一套独特的潜在益处。动物模型提供的比较视角既可以揭示跨物种衰老过程的一般原则和机制，也可以突出人类特有的衰老特征。此外，在某些情况下，在人类中极难收集的数据集（例如自然社会环境中的精细行为数据）在野生灵长类动物中更容易获得。然而，尽管人们对衰老作为人类健康问题的兴趣浓厚，而且近几十年来在这一领域取得了巨大进展，但野生动物的衰老模式--与年龄有关的变化不仅在生存方面，而且在社会行为、激素谱以及健康和功能的其他方面--仍然几乎完全没有描述。我们从肯尼亚南部野生狒狒种群中获得的详细纵向数据提供了明确的证据，表明衰老发生，个体之间的寿命和功能随年龄的下降存在相当大的差异。狒狒生活在稳定的社会群体中，群体中的个体共享共同的环境，因此仅凭身体和人口统计学差异无法解释衰老过程和寿命的变化。然而，个体社会关系的质量和稳健性确实因个体而异，无论是在社会群体内部还是在社会群体之间，这种变化对狒狒都有生理和功能上的影响。这些结果使社会联系在我们正在进行的前景，综合分析在这一人群的终身结果的方差，并设置了一个详细的调查的社会联系的动态及其与老龄化的关系的阶段。拟议的工作的目标是确定的组件，生理相关性，以及在老龄化的背景下的社会连通性的后果，并确定遗传和环境的变异社会连通性的来源。我们将测试的假设，在野生非人类灵长类动物在人类中，社会联系是整个生命过程中的健康和福祉的预测;这种影响是独立的密度;社会联系随着年龄的增长而下降。然后，我们将研究一组已知的生物学途径和社会联系表型的遗传变异之间的关系。最后，我们将整合遗传变异和环境变异的影响到寿命的方法，使用时间序列模型。我们会问，在生命早期阶段发生的影响是否会传播到晚年，或者晚年的社会联系是否是一个相对独立的现象。这种分析将有助于确定生命过程中的各个阶段，在这些阶段中，预测和/或干预衰老相关的结果可能是最有成效的。 公共卫生相关性：拟议的研究将调查野生灵长类动物自然种群衰老期间的健康和福祉，这些灵长类动物与人类密切相关，有着关键的相似之处，但也有重要的差异。该研究将专门研究社会联系对自然环境中与衰老相关的结果的贡献，以及遗传和环境对社会联系本身的贡献。这将为人类健康提供潜在的好处，说明缓解与年龄有关的人类健康和生存下降的重要机会和制约因素。