Collaborative Research: An integrative approach to understanding variation in patterns of aging in primates

人类寿命在上个世纪翻了一番，这与年龄相关疾病的增加有关。这些疾病源于与年龄相关的身体功能的自然恶化，但尚不清楚整个系统的恶化--例如，骨丢失和免疫系统功能下降--是如何联系的。还有待确定的是，当代环境和祖先环境之间的不匹配是否会进一步影响人类的衰老模式和与年龄相关的疾病。年龄相关疾病的年龄模式和发病时间的个体差异的关键影响仍未被发现。这个项目研究野生的非人类灵长类动物，以检查随着年龄增长而恶化的生物系统，并深入研究衰老速度个体差异背后的机制。这项研究提供了关于老龄化的有价值的比较数据，通过识别与年龄相关疾病相关的特定社会和生命过程因素，加深了对人类老龄化模式的理解。该项目支持一名博士后研究人员和多名本科生的培训和专业发展，支持美国K-12学校的当地社区推广和参与，以及科学推广。该项目建立在15年前收集的相同人群数据的基础上，提供了100多个人的行为和人口数据的丰富背景。早期生活和成年期的社会逆境、累积的生殖努力和生物衰老的多个标记物包括衰老模式和结果的预测因素。该项目的主要目的是确定：1)在身体退化(以骨骼和肌肉损失衡量)、生理失调(由激素和免疫标记物标示)和衰老的分子特征方面，整个生命过程中的衰老轨迹，并将结果与现有的来自人类和其他非人类灵长类动物的衰老数据进行比较；2)对生物衰老速度的个体差异产生最大影响的因素和时间，包括社会地位、社会群体成员的创伤性变化、社会融入不良和生殖努力增加。通过将丰富的纵向数据集与生理学、医学成像、分子技术和比较方法中的尖端方法相结合，这项研究增加了少量但不断增长的野生种群中非人类灵长类动物的衰老模型，这些模型可以为理解人类衰老和与衰老相关的恶化的演变和变化建立一个信息丰富的背景。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。

Human lifespan has doubled in the last century, and this has been linked to an increase in age-associated disease. These diseases stem from the natural age-associated deterioration of bodily function but it is unclear how deterioration across systems – for example, bone loss and decreased immune system function – are related. It also remains to be determined whether patterns of aging and age-associated disease in humans are further impacted by a mismatch between contemporary and ancestral environments. Key influences on individual differences in patterns of aging and timing of onset of age-related disease remain to be uncovered. This project studies wild-living non-human primates to examine the biological systems that deteriorate with age, and drills down into the mechanisms behind individual differences in the rate of aging. This study contributes valuable comparative data on aging that deepens an understanding of human aging patterns through identifying specific social and life course factors associated with age-related disease. This project supports the training and professional development of a postdoctoral researcher and multiple undergraduate students, local community outreach and engagement, and science outreach in K-12 schools in the U.S.This project builds on over fifteen prior years of data collection on the same populations, which provides a rich context of behavioral and demographic data from over 100 individuals. Social adversity in early life and adulthood, cumulative reproductive effort, and multiple markers of biological aging are included predictors of aging patterns and outcomes. The main aims of the project are to identify: 1) the trajectory of aging across the life course with respect to physical deterioration (as measured by bone and muscle loss), physiological dysregulation (as indexed by hormone and immune markers), and molecular hallmarks of aging, and compare the results with existing datasets on aging from humans and other nonhuman primates; 2) the factors and timing that exert the strongest influence on inter-individual differences in the pace of biological aging, including social status, traumatic changes in social group membership, poor social integration, and increased reproductive effort. By coupling a rich longitudinal dataset with cutting edge methods in physiology, medical imaging, molecular techniques, and comparative methods, this study adds to a small, but growing number of nonhuman primate models of aging in wild populations that can build an informative context for understanding the evolution of, and variation in, human aging and aging-related deterioration.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.