Doctoral Dissertation Research: The role of testosterone in the modulation of parental behaviors in primates

睾酮(T)激素存在于女性和男性中，人们对了解T在女性生殖行为生物学中的作用越来越感兴趣。这个博士论文项目调查了自由放养猴子的T和母性行为之间的关系。在这些非人类灵长类动物中研究T与母性的关系将有助于研究育儿的激素机制，并为理解灵长类和古人类进化过程中类似人类的育儿行为的发展提供比较数据。该项目将促进对本科生和毕业生的STEM领域的培训，包括来自服务不足和代表性不足背景的妇女。这个项目还将支持关于人类和灵长类生物学和进化的研究合作和公共科学推广。这个项目将调查T在调节母体护理方面的作用，从当前的后代转向未来的繁殖，以及对其他可能伤害后代的群体成员表现出的攻击性(‘母体攻击’)。研究人员将收集49只卡约圣地亚哥恒河猴母亲产后3个月内的行为和生理纵向数据，当时母亲的护理急剧减少，为向下一代的生殖过渡做准备，以及当母亲对他人的攻击加剧时。野外内分泌学的进展，包括对粪便激素代谢物的测量，将使生理学和一系列丰富的行为得到持续跟踪，并为未来的研究提供新的方法。来自现存非人类灵长类动物的比较数据对于研究人类行为的进化起源很有价值。因此，该项目将有助于在分类群和性别之间扩展T的研究，并加强我们对灵长类和早期人类中父母照料如何演变的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The hormone testosterone (T) occurs in females as well as males, and there is growing interest in understanding the role of T in female reproductive behavioral biology. This doctoral dissertation project investigates relationships between T and maternal behaviors in free-ranging monkeys. The study of T in relation to motherhood in these non-human primates will contribute to the literature on the hormonal mechanisms of parenting, and provide comparative data for understanding the development of human-like parenting behavior during primate and hominin evolution. The project will facilitate training in STEM fields for undergraduates and graduates, including women from underserved and underrepresented backgrounds. This project will also support research collaborations and public science outreach about human and primate biology and evolution.This project will investigate the role of T in regulation of maternal care away from the current offspring towards future reproduction, and displays of aggression to other group members who can potentially harm offspring ('maternal aggression'). The investigators will collect longitudinal data on behaviors and physiology from 49 Cayo Santiago rhesus macaque mothers during their first 3 months postpartum, when maternal care steeply decreases in preparation for the reproductive transition to the next offspring, and when maternal aggression towards others is heightened. Advances in field endocrinology, including the measurement of fecal hormone metabolites, will enable the continuous tracking of physiology along with a rich suite of behaviors and provide new methods for future studies. Comparative data from living non-human primates are valuable for investigating the evolutionary origins of human behavior. The project will therefore contribute to nascent efforts to expand the study of T across taxa and sexes, and to enhance our understanding of how parental care evolved in primates and early humans.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.