Mechanisms and Consequences of Social Connectedness in a Wild Primate Population

对野生动物种群的衰老研究，特别是对我们的灵长类亲属的研究，提供了一套独特的 对理解人类衰老的过程和模式的潜在益处。比较 动物模型提供的观点既可以揭示一般原则和机制， 跨物种的衰老过程，并能突出人类特有的衰老特征。此外，在 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）更容易在野生灵长类种群中获得。然而，尽管有浓厚的兴趣 老龄化作为人类健康问题，以及近几十年来在这一领域取得的巨大进展， 野生动物的衰老-与年龄有关的变化不仅表现在生存方面，还表现在社会行为、激素水平、 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清楚地表明， 这两个证据表明，衰老的发生，以及相当大的差异，个人之间看到，无论是在 寿命和功能随着年龄的增长而下降。狒狒生活在稳定的社会群体中， 共享共同的环境，因此仅凭物理和人口统计学差异无法解释观察到的 老化过程和寿命的变化。然而，个人社会的质量和稳健性 在社会群体内部和群体之间，个体之间的关系确实各不相同，这种差异既有社会群体的特点，也有社会群体的特点。 对狒狒的生理和功能的影响。这些结果使社会联系 在我们正在进行的前景，综合分析的方差在一生的结果，在这个人口，并已 为详细调查社会联系的动态及其与老龄化的关系奠定了基础。 所提出的工作的目标是确定的组成部分，生理相关， 在老龄化的背景下，社会联系的后果，并确定遗传和环境 社会连通性差异的来源。我们将测试的假设，在野生非人类灵长类动物，如在 对于人类来说，社会联系是整个生命过程中健康和福祉的预测因素;这种影响 是独立于密度的;社会联系随着年龄的增长而下降。然后我们将调查 一组已知生物学途径中的遗传变异与社会联系之间的关系 表型最后，我们将把遗传变异和环境变异的影响整合到一个生命中 跨度方法，使用时间序列模型。我们会问在生命早期阶段发生的影响 传播到晚年，或者晚年的社会联系是一个相对独立的现象。这 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- 相关成果可能是最富有成效的。

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.