Elsevier

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Volume 37, Issue 2, February 2012, Pages 191-199
Psychoneuroendocrinology

Physiological and behavioral adaptation to relocation stress in differentially reared rhesus monkeys: Hair cortisol as a biomarker for anxiety-related responses

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.06.003Get rights and content

Summary

Increased hair cortisol concentrations have been associated with stress exposure in both human and nonhuman primates, and hair cortisol is now gaining attention as a biomarker for stress-related health problems. The present study examined the behavioral and physiological reactions of rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) infants reared in three different rearing environments to the major stressor of relocation. Infant monkeys (n = 61) were studied from birth through 2 years of age. For the first 8 months of life, infants were either with their mothers and peers (MPR, n = 21) or reared in a nursery using either peer-rearing (PR, n = 20) or surrogate-peer-rearing (SPR, n = 20). At approximately 8 months of age, infants were removed from their rearing group, simultaneously placed into a large social environment consisting of infants from all three rearing conditions, and observed for the next 16 months. Behavior was recorded twice per week from 1 to 24 months, and composite anxiety scores were calculated for each monkey. Monkeys were initially shaved at the nape of the neck on day 14 to remove any prenatal effects on hair cortisol deposition. Hair samples were then collected by re-shaving at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months and analyzed for cortisol content. MPR monkeys were the least affected by the stressor, showing smaller increases in anxious behavior than the other groups and more rapid physiological adaptation as assessed using hair cortisol. PR monkeys showed heightened and prolonged anxious behavior, had the highest cortisol levels prior to relocation, and their cortisol levels did not decline until more than a year later. SPR monkeys exhibited more rapid behavioral adaptation than PR monkeys, showing heightened but not prolonged anxious behavior. However, the SPR group showed a marked increase in cortisol in response to the relocation, and like the PR group, their physiological adaptation was slower than that of the MPR group as indicated by elevated cortisol levels at 18 months. By 24 months of age (16 months after relocation), all rearing groups were indistinguishable from one another physiologically and behaviorally. Spearman rank correlation revealed that hair cortisol taken at month 6 was not correlated with composite anxiety scores from months 6 to 8 (just before the relocation), but was positively correlated with composite anxiety scores between months 8 and 12 (immediately after relocation) for PR infants only (rs = 0.75, p < 0.001). Month 6-hair cortisol tended to positively correlate with composite anxiety scores for the following 6 months (months 12–18) for PR monkeys only (rs = 0.47, p = 0.037), which exhibited more anxious behavior than MPR and SPR infants during this period (ANOVA: F(2,60) = 14.761, p < 0.001) This is the first study to show that elevated hair cortisol early in life is a biomarker for the later development of anxious behavior in response to a major life stressor, particularly for infant monkeys exposed to early life adversity in the form of peer-rearing.

Introduction

Exposure to early life adversity has been identified in both animal and human models as a risk factor for developing anxiety later in life (Coplan et al., 1996, Huot et al., 2001, Heim and Nemeroff, 2001). In nonhuman primates, these effects have been studied in infant monkeys exposed to different early rearing environments (see review by Stevens et al., 2009). Infants reared with other naïve infants for the first 8 months of life (peer-rearing) develop most species-typical patterns of behavior but show more intense reactions to social separation (Higley et al., 1991) and also display heightened anxiety, particularly in response to novel events, compared to mother-peer-reared (MPR) monkeys (Harlow, 1969, Suomi, 1991). As juveniles, peer-reared (PR) monkeys show lower levels of affiliative behavior and are less likely to have their stress levels reduced by the presence of a companion than normally reared monkeys (Winslow et al., 2003). Juvenile PR monkeys also show a heightened acoustic startle response (Parr et al., 2002), enhanced fear potentiated startle (Nelson et al., 2009), and disrupted sleep patterns (Barrett et al., 2009) compared to mother-reared controls. Very little information is available on PR adults. However, in one study, adult PR animals showed heightened vulnerability to alcohol consumption compared with normally reared adults (Fahlke et al., 2000), a finding consistent with the view that increased anxiety may persist into adulthood following peer-rearing.

Despite the link between peer-rearing and anxiety, no consistent pattern has emerged from an examination of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical (HPA) axis function in these infants. PR monkeys have been reported to show higher basal levels of cortisol (Barrett et al., 2009, Higley et al., 1992), lower basal levels but no difference in stress responsivity (Shannon et al., 1998), no difference in basal levels but lower stress responsivity (Clarke, 1993), higher stress responsivity (Fahlke et al., 2000), a lower cortisol set point (Capitanio et al., 2005), and lastly no effects in either baseline or stress responsivity (Winslow et al., 2003). Variation in rearing practices or other differences between primate facilities might account for some of these inconsistencies.

HPA function has also been examined in a second kind of early nursery rearing environment: surrogate-peer-rearing (SPR). In this condition, infants are reared with inanimate surrogate mothers and given up to 2 h of daily play experience with other infants. The purpose of this rearing condition is to reduce the profound attachment that occurs between infants, thereby presumably reducing anxiety and facilitating play behavior. Although less is known about the effects of this rearing procedure, infant monkeys appear to acquire all the typical forms of species-normative behavior without showing excessive clinging (Hansen, 1966). As adults, SPR monkeys are indistinguishable from mother-reared monkeys in their reproductive and parental behavior (Novak et al., 1992, Sackett et al., 2002). Converging lines of evidence suggest that infant SPR monkeys have significantly lower basal concentrations of circulating cortisol (Capitanio et al., 2005) than MPR and PR counterparts, although in one study (Davenport et al., 2003), this difference was present only in the first month of life. Other studies have revealed that SPR monkeys respond significantly less to the stress of brief social separation (Meyer et al., 1975, Shannon et al., 1998) than both MPR monkeys and PR monkeys, which is perhaps not surprising given the inanimate nature of their mother and their restricted interaction with peers.

One of the limitations of previous research on HPA activity in differently reared monkeys is a reliance on blood plasma as the primary sample matrix, given the well-known lability of circulating cortisol to circadian variation and environmental disturbances. Moreover, studies of HPA function over the course of development necessitate repeated sample collections, each requiring capture and sedation of the animals, which not only further stresses the subjects but may also confound the results. A long-term measure of circulating glucocorticoids would greatly reduce the frequency of sampling required and would eliminate the confounds imposed by capture and restraint.

As a potential alternative to measuring cortisol “point samples” in plasma or saliva, hair cortisol has recently gained attention as an index of chronic HPA activity (Davenport et al., 2006, Sauvé et al., 2007, Kirschbaum et al., 2009) and as a possible biomarker for stress-related health disorders in both human and nonhuman primate populations. Hair cortisol has proven to be a reliable indicator of the effects of various stressors. In adult rhesus monkeys, relocation to a different environment resulted in elevated hair cortisol along with marked behavioral changes and sleep disturbances (Davenport et al., 2008). These hair cortisol samples were also strongly correlated with salivary cortisol samples obtained in the same time frame (Davenport et al., 2006). In human studies, increased hair cortisol concentrations have been associated with perceived stress in healthy pregnant women (Kalra et al., 2007), hospitalization of at-term infants (Yamada et al., 2007), periods of elevated cortisol secretion in patients with Cushing's syndrome (Thomson et al., 2010), and long-term unemployment (Dettenborn et al., 2010).

The present study was designed to determine how differences in early experience affect the response of infant rhesus monkeys to the major stress event of relocation by measuring both anxious behavior and chronic concentrations of cortisol derived from hair. Repeated assessment of both variables over 2 years enabled us to test the hypothesis that heightened HPA activity (as measured by hair cortisol concentrations) early in development predicts later anxious behavior in response to stress. Another novel and important aspect of this study was examining anxious behavior and HPA axis activity in two different nursery-rearing environments (PR vs. SPR) in comparison to MPR controls. In this regard, the rhesus monkey infants used this study were part of a larger project aimed at understanding biobehavioral development at the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Infants were reared in all three rearing conditions described above for the first 8 months of life and then, as is standard practice at this laboratory, were relocated and placed together in one large social group. That this relocation can be considered initially stressful is based not only on previous findings of substantial relocation effects in adult rhesus monkeys (Davenport et al., 2008) but also on the facts that the new environment was substantially different from the monkeys’ previous housing environments, both in size and complexity, and in sheer number of animals with which to interact.

Thus, the aims of the present study were (1) to characterize hair cortisol concentrations in differently reared infant rhesus monkeys across the first 2 years of life both before and after the stressor of relocation and (2) determine whether hair cortisol was a predictor of anxious behavior after the major social stressor of weaning and relocation in these young monkeys.

Section snippets

Subjects and rearing

The subjects were 61 infant rhesus monkeys born and raised at the Laboratory for Comparative Ethology (LCE) at the National Institutes of Health in two birth cohorts (2006, n = 25; 2007, n = 36; 33 males, 28 females). Animals from three different rearing conditions were studied: mother-peer-reared (MPR, n = 21), peer-reared (PR, n = 20), or surrogate-peer-reared (SPR, n = 20; Table 1). Rearing conditions in this laboratory have previously been described in detail (Ruppenthal, 1979, Shannon et al., 1998).

Hair cortisol concentrations across development

Repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant within-subjects effect of age on hair cortisol concentrations across the first 2 years of life (F(3,123) = 24.25, p < 0.001), reflecting an overall decrease with age (Fig. 1a). When specific time points were analyzed using paired sample t-tests, overall hair cortisol concentrations (i.e., collapsed across rearing condition) significantly decreased between months 12 and 18 (t(58) = −4.52, p < 0.001) and again between months 18 and 24 (t(44) = −4.43, p < 0.001).

Discussion

The present study is the first to observe differently reared monkeys from birth continuously through the first 2 years of life and the first to use a chronic measure of HPA axis activity to characterize changes in this system in response to the stress of relocation. Our study demonstrated that hair cortisol is a potential biomarker for the development of anxiety-like behavior in response to a major life stressor in young monkeys, particularly in animals exposed to adverse early rearing. It also

Role of funding sources

This research was supported by funds from the Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, NIH, and by NIH Grant RR11122 to M.A.N. Neither the NIH nor the NICHD had any further role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Conflict of interest

We declare that none of the authors has any financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interests in relation to this study or the content of this manuscript.

Acknowledgements

The studies described in this report were performed in accordance with the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were approved by the NICHD Animal Care and Use Committee. These findings represent a portion of AMD's doctoral dissertation research, and were presented at the 42nd annual meeting of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology in Chicago, IL, October 14–17, 2009. We are grateful to Matthew Novak, Angela Ruggiero, Elizabeth Mallott, Nicole Bowling,

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