Doctoral Dissertation Research: Impacts of early life adversity on bone growth and maintenance

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。早年的逆境对个人的成长和发展有广泛的影响。研究已经记录了生长发育方面的重大缺陷，特别是四肢。然而，早年的逆境引起的变化几乎肯定会在骨骼形态的其他方面表达出来。这项博士论文研究项目利用生命史理论来研究能量权衡如何影响骨生长以及骨结构和动态重塑，以更全面地了解早期生活条件对生长和发育结果的影响。这些见解还揭示了个体变异的更普遍的驱动因素，以及使这种变异成为可能的进化和生物机制。该项目支持对不同的本科生和研究生进行培训和指导。将通过出版物、外联和教育努力分享成果，以确保广泛传播。该研究项目在灵长类动物中调查了这些问题，这些灵长类动物的生长和发育结果以及发育过程中的社会生态环境都有很好的记录。研究人员测试了这一假设，即出生在高质量早期生活条件(中等降雨量，母亲地位较高)的个体将具有更好的生长标记以及骨骼的结构和材料特性。研究人员测试了额外的假设，即与有多个早期生活逆境来源的人相比，影响的幅度会更大。研究人员通过分析长骨长度、骨的横截面几何特性、骨孔隙率和骨重建参数来检验这些假说。这项研究在将标准的全骨测量与骨骼内部微观结构特性的研究相结合方面是新颖的。这一发现利用骨骼作为了解个人发展历史的窗口的能力，提供了对骨骼在整个生命过程中如何对环境做出反应的洞察，并提供了对灵长类进化生物学的更全面的见解。这一奖项反映了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。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Adversity in early life has wide-ranging effects on individual growth and development. Research has documented important deficits in growth, especially in the limbs. Yet, changes induced by early life adversity are almost certainly expressed in other aspects of skeletal morphology. This doctoral dissertation research project uses life history theory to investigate how energetic trade-offs impact bone growth as well as bone structure and dynamic remodeling to develop a more complete understanding of the effects of early life condition on growth and development outcomes. These insights also shed light on more general drivers of individual variation and the evolutionary and biological mechanisms that enable such variation. The project supports the training and mentorship of diverse undergraduate and graduate students. Results will be shared via publications, outreach, and educational efforts to ensure broad dissemination. The research project investigates these issues in primates with well documented variation in growth and development outcomes and in socio-ecological environments during development. The investigators test the hypothesis that individuals born into high quality early life conditions (moderate rainfall, mothers of high dominance rank) will have improved markers of growth and structural and material properties of bone. The investigators test the additional hypothesis that the magnitude of impacts will be stronger in comparison to individuals with multiple sources of early life adversity. The investigators test the hypotheses via analysis of long bone lengths, cross-sectional geometric properties of bone, bone porosity, and parameters of bone remodeling. The study is novel in its integration of standard whole bone measurements with investigations of bone’s internal microscopic structural properties. Findings leverage bone’s ability to act as a window into an individual’s developmental past, providing insight into how the skeleton responds to environments throughout life and more general insights into the primate evolutionary biology.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.