Child Study Center Grand Rounds 01.26.2021

Transcript

• 00:00I'm so excited to share with you the
• 00:03body of work I've been engaged in with
• 00:06primates for really over the last 20 years,
• 00:09so please bear with me for one moment while
• 00:12I finalize my screen sharing and I just
• 00:15need to click a few more buttons here.
• 00:18So please enjoy this lovely photo of
• 00:20a monkey, Mother, infant and mom.
• 00:27OK.
• 00:43Great.
• 00:46So I'm so excited to talk today about
• 00:48the intergenerational effects of secure
• 00:50attachment in rhesus monkeys and what we
• 00:52can learn from studying primate models.
• 00:55But first, before I get into that
• 00:57work and the work that led to it,
• 01:00I think it's really important to put this
• 01:02body of research into context and to do that,
• 01:05we're going to start at Green Park.
• 01:08Probably many of you are wondering
• 01:10what the heck is going park.
• 01:12Hogan Park was the name of the psychology
• 01:15Department at University of Wisconsin,
• 01:17Madison and its street address
• 01:19was actually 600 N Park Ave.
• 01:21But when people would quickly scrawl the
• 01:23address back in the middle of the last
• 01:26century early last century, you know,
• 01:29for intercampus Mail they would write
• 01:31600 and Park Anna sloppy handwriting.
• 01:33It looks like Goon Park and the nickname
• 01:36just stuck and so even though the building
• 01:38has long since been demolished and renovated,
• 01:41the address.
• 01:42Is still the same and good park is
• 01:45important because it sets the stage for
• 01:47the work that will be talking about today.
• 01:51It's also the location for this
• 01:53fabulous book which I recommend to
• 01:55everybody here called Love at Goon Park.
• 01:57Written by Pulitzer Prize winning
• 01:59journalist and science writer
• 02:01extraordinaire Deborah Blum,
• 02:02here's a little bit about that book for Eons,
• 02:05Love was the province of poets and Dreamers.
• 02:08Scientists considered it unworthy
• 02:09of real study,
• 02:10yet in the middle of the last century,
• 02:13one scientist had the courage.
• 02:15And the curiosity to uncover
• 02:17the true power of love.
• 02:19And he forever changed the way we
• 02:21think about human relationships.
• 02:22This is the story of that
• 02:24great transformation.
• 02:25And in fact,
• 02:26that one human whom she
• 02:28writes about was Harry Harlow.
• 02:30Now, although he died almost 40 years ago,
• 02:33Harry Harlow had a lasting
• 02:35impact on the science.
• 02:36We do the treatments we give to children,
• 02:39and most importantly,
• 02:40what we know to be true
• 02:43about children's needs.
• 02:44Now Harlow is best known for his now
• 02:48controversial studies on maternal separation,
• 02:50like social isolation Ring,
• 02:52which is depicted here in which
• 02:54infant monkeys would be reared
• 02:56in complete total isolation.
• 02:58No visual, auditory,
• 03:00or tactile access to any other animals
• 03:03for periods ranging up to 12 months.
• 03:06These studies actually followed
• 03:07his very earliest studies,
• 03:09which he's also known for into attachment
• 03:12by studying monkeys on attachments too.
• 03:15Inanimate surrogate mothers
• 03:16covered in a soft fuzzy cloth.
• 03:19Ann,
• 03:19it's important to know that these studies
• 03:22were not so controversial at the time.
• 03:24In the 1950s and 60s,
• 03:26because but they are now and the
• 03:28reason for that is that we need to
• 03:31recognize that scientific standards
• 03:33change overtime as we gain knowledge
• 03:35an this includes the ethical standards.
• 03:37Now, for a look into how ethical standards,
• 03:40and also oversight, has changed.
• 03:42I mean, just take a look at that PPE right?
• 03:46He's not wearing any,
• 03:47and there's no way it that.
• 03:49Anybody now could walk up to
• 03:51any monkey in it
• 03:53in their street clothes?
• 03:54So not only has PPE standards change,
• 03:57but the way we treat the animals that
• 04:00we work with and the types of research
• 04:02that we can do have evolved overtime.
• 04:05And in fact there is very strict
• 04:07oversight at multiple levels.
• 04:09Anybody conducting monkey research
• 04:10has to adhere by law by federal
• 04:13law to institutional oversight and
• 04:15multiple levels of federal oversight.
• 04:17And so, along with the change
• 04:20in ethical standards,
• 04:21the science has changed as well.
• 04:23Now most people don't know that
• 04:26for several decades before his
• 04:27experimental work into attachment,
• 04:29Harlow actually studied learning cognition.
• 04:31An even neural function in monkeys.
• 04:34So for the first few decades of his
• 04:37careeer working first at a nearby zoo,
• 04:40but then developing his own lab,
• 04:42he studied cognitive abilities in primates,
• 04:45and he discovered that monkeys were far
• 04:48more cognitively complex than rats were.
• 04:50Again,
• 04:50we didn't know that at the time and
• 04:52they could form complex learning
• 04:55and problem solving strategies.
• 04:56That is,
• 04:57they could learn to learn and the
• 04:59way he devised this information
• 05:01is by developing a Now classic
• 05:03apparatus at least classic,
• 05:05to cognitive psychologists and
• 05:07comparative psychologists called
• 05:08the Wisconsin General Testing
• 05:09apparatus depicted here on the left,
• 05:11or the WDT,
• 05:12and this is important because it's
• 05:14going to make an appearance later,
• 05:17so Harlow and discovering how
• 05:18smart monkeys were.
• 05:20He wanted to study the ontogeny of learning.
• 05:23So to do this,
• 05:23he needed easy access to infant monkeys,
• 05:25so he started a nursery.
• 05:28And he observed that during the routine
• 05:30care and cleaning up these nursery
• 05:32monkeys where they had cloth diapers
• 05:34lining the bottoms of their cages.
• 05:36Whenever the diapers were removed,
• 05:37the infants would throw major
• 05:39tantrums and would only be sued
• 05:41when a new cloth diaper was put in.
• 05:43And so he thought.
• 05:44Could these monkeys be attached
• 05:46to their cloth diapers?
• 05:47And this in fact led to his series
• 05:50of studies in the next several
• 05:52decades for the rest of his
• 05:54career into affectional systems.
• 05:56Now it's impossible to overstate
• 05:58just how much we now take for
• 06:00granted that it is normal, natural,
• 06:02and necessary to touch and hug and
• 06:04hold our children and to nurture them,
• 06:06and not just for moms to do it,
• 06:09but for dads to do it too,
• 06:11and not just to do this in infancy,
• 06:13but across their whole lives,
• 06:15and not just to do it when
• 06:17they're behaving well,
• 06:18but maybe most importantly,
• 06:19when they are upset and need need that
• 06:22comfort most like you can see in this
• 06:24final picture here in the bottom right,
• 06:26where my husband is comforting her son.
• 06:28Sorry,
• 06:29the day we had to Bury our cat.
• 06:31It was emotional for all of us.
• 06:34So we take this for granted now,
• 06:36and it's because of Harlow's work
• 06:37that we now can take this for granted.
• 06:40And his work has also laid the
• 06:42foundation for the treatments we give.
• 06:44For example,
• 06:45to infants in the Nick you for the
• 06:47breast feeding practices,
• 06:48and also again for the ways that
• 06:50we care for children across their
• 06:52life spans and across generations.
• 06:55As I said, this was not always the
• 06:57document in the mid 20th century.
• 07:00Common dogma was that too much physical
• 07:02contact with children would make them weak,
• 07:05both physically via exposure
• 07:06to germs and psychologically.
• 07:08And you can see this quote from
• 07:10one of the fathers of behaviorism.
• 07:12In his book on Infant Child Care,
• 07:15you will soon be ashamed of
• 07:17the mawkish sentimental way you
• 07:18have been handling your child.
• 07:20Well, Harlow disagreed and based on
• 07:23what he observed in his infant monkeys.
• 07:26He stated in his first presentation
• 07:27of these findings to the American
• 07:29Psychological Association
• 07:30presidential address.
• 07:31He boldly stated there is more to mother.
• 07:34There is more to Mother love than milk,
• 07:37and that's perfectly
• 07:38illustrated by this image here,
• 07:39in which the infant monkey is maintaining
• 07:42as much physical contact as possible
• 07:44with a soft cloth surrogate mother
• 07:46and stretching over to drink from the
• 07:48bottle that's attached to the wire mother.
• 07:51And in fact,
• 07:52he also discovered that monkeys
• 07:54would learn to open windows just
• 07:56to get glimpses of their.
• 07:57Soft cloth covers.
• 07:59Surrogate mother.
• 08:01And so his studies really
• 08:03revolutionized the scientific thinking
• 08:05about socialization processes.
• 08:07Now around the same time,
• 08:09someone else was getting into attachment,
• 08:12and we're probably all very familiar
• 08:14with this father of attachment theory.
• 08:17British psychologist John Bowlby.
• 08:19I really hope that anyone here who works
• 08:22with children is familiar with John
• 08:24Bowlby's early theories of attachment,
• 08:26which also changed the way
• 08:28we think about children.
• 08:29However, Bowlby knew of no
• 08:31experiments that manipulated the
• 08:32potentially relevant variables in
• 08:34the domain of attachment formation,
• 08:35and that is to say he knew of no
• 08:39science to support his theories.
• 08:42Well, Fortunately enough,
• 08:43and this is something interesting
• 08:45I discovered in the research
• 08:47for this presentation.
• 08:48Turns out boldly in Harlem became
• 08:50friends and I really want to
• 08:52encourage everyone point you to
• 08:54this fascinating historical article.
• 08:56I love you Tana that talks about and
• 08:59really goes into detail about their
• 09:01professional correspondence that
• 09:02evolved giver, hug and kiss for me.
• 09:05OK,
• 09:06dad and collaboration give her
• 09:08a hug and kiss from.
• 09:15Amanda, can you unmute yourself? Sorry.
• 09:23OK, that's better.
• 09:24OK, so their correspondent started in
• 09:271957 and in one of the first response is
• 09:30that Harry Harlow gave to John Bowlby,
• 09:32which is almost exactly 63 years
• 09:35ago to the day. Harlow rotable be.
• 09:38It's an understatement.
• 09:39To add that we have research interests
• 09:41in common and from this point forward,
• 09:43the two greatly influenced each other's work.
• 09:45Bowlby sent Harlow, for example,
• 09:46a draft paper for which he would be
• 09:48most grateful for any comments and
• 09:50criticisms that Harlow care to make.
• 09:52What was the name of that paper?
• 09:54Well, it was his first draft of the
• 09:56nature of the child's tide to its mother,
• 09:59which he published in 19.
• 10:0058 and Harlow would refer to this
• 10:02paper as the reference Bible.
• 10:07And so, over the years,
• 10:09hard over the next several years,
• 10:12Harlows work his empirical findings on
• 10:14maternal separation provided Bowlby with
• 10:16evidence that he needed for his own knew
• 10:19conceptualisation of separation anxiety
• 10:21as a survival mechanism for infants,
• 10:23and particularly of the mother or
• 10:26caregiver as a haven of safety with
• 10:28a term which Harlow would use in
• 10:31subsequent publications or what
• 10:33we now call a secure base.
• 10:36And so if it's true that John Bowlby is
• 10:38considered the father of attachment theory,
• 10:40then I think it's only fair to consider Harry
• 10:44Harlow the father of attachment science.
• 10:47And Harlow intern.
• 10:48This relationship was bidirectional
• 10:50Harlow Internews Bowlby's theories
• 10:52and his inspiration for the design
• 10:55of his studies to systematically
• 10:57test the effects of maternal infant
• 10:59separation on infant development.
• 11:01And it's really important to note
• 11:04Bowlby's influence on comparative
• 11:06psychology and animal research as a field,
• 11:09and these are just some of the three major
• 11:12ways that his thinking influenced our work.
• 11:20So Harlow then from that point on
• 11:23made a career of using rhesus monkeys
• 11:25to study things that were not easily
• 11:28researched in humans themselves.
• 11:31He studied the consequences of blocking
• 11:33the formation of different affectional
• 11:35systems via isolation rearing,
• 11:37which I also mentioned,
• 11:38or which I mentioned earlier,
• 11:41affectively reproducing psychopathologies
• 11:42in monkeys that are observable in humans,
• 11:45namely severe depression,
• 11:46and these are the controversial
• 11:48studies that he's most.
• 11:50Well known for, but it's really important.
• 11:52This is not all that he focused on,
• 11:54because later in his career he also
• 11:57studied the importance of other social
• 11:59relationships and so with his second wife,
• 12:01Margaret Harlow,
• 12:02who developed this really cool apparatus
• 12:03called nuclear family housing,
• 12:05in which adults and infants lived
• 12:07in separate apartments here.
• 12:08But the adults were confined
• 12:10to their apartments.
• 12:11Both the mother and the father
• 12:12and the infants could go through
• 12:14this tunnel and play with each
• 12:16other at will throughout the day.
• 12:18But at night they would be locked in at home,
• 12:21in their apartments with each other.
• 12:24And in this way he could
• 12:26systematically study the you know,
• 12:27by manipulating the amount of time that
• 12:30infants had exposure to each other.
• 12:32He could study the impacts of peer
• 12:35relationships on infant development.
• 12:37And so this whole body of work
• 12:39started to definitively establish
• 12:40the overwhelming importance of early
• 12:43social experiences for the development
• 12:45of normal behaviors later in life.
• 12:50And beyond establishing that human
• 12:52psychopathologies can be reproduced
• 12:54in primates and that various
• 12:56social experiences are normal or
• 12:57important for normal development,
• 12:59unbeknownst to many,
• 13:00Harlow also focused on therapeutics,
• 13:02and one such example are the series
• 13:05of studies that he and his colleagues
• 13:08conducted rescuing the social behavior
• 13:10of those isolates I mentioned earlier,
• 13:13and so they achieve this through
• 13:15peer therapy sessions. And So what?
• 13:18You're looking at the top here is.
• 13:21On a social isolate,
• 13:22who until this time had never
• 13:25been exposed to another monkey,
• 13:27very clearly very anxious and withdrawn
• 13:30Hereupon initial contact with another infant.
• 13:32And importantly, the infants were younger
• 13:35than the social isolates themselves,
• 13:37and after several months of a
• 13:40carefully controlled exposure,
• 13:41everyday to these peers,
• 13:43the isolates then went on to develop
• 13:46pretty typical social behaviors.
• 13:48And so this whole body of work,
• 13:51very fondly referred to this
• 13:53research trilogy as Love, created,
• 13:54love, destroyed, and Love regained.
• 13:56And this may sound rather poetic.
• 13:59And in fact,
• 14:00Harlow was really a poetic writer.
• 14:02He actually had a speech
• 14:04impediment as a child,
• 14:05and through many years of teaching
• 14:07as a professor, he overcame that,
• 14:10and he turned into a prolific and poetic
• 14:12science communicator whose sense of
• 14:14humor carried over into his writing,
• 14:17and let me tell you,
• 14:19Harlow was.
• 14:19Hilarious,
• 14:20so I also stumbled upon in the background
• 14:22research for this presentation.
• 14:24This article by Harlow comparing different
• 14:27cognitive abilities of primates in the
• 14:29early zoos that he worked in in in Wisconsin.
• 14:31Now you might notice the publication
• 14:34date 2008,
• 14:34but he died in the 80s,
• 14:36so actually this was published posthumously.
• 14:38It was found in his archives,
• 14:41an article he had never published.
• 14:43An was published in 2008,
• 14:44so I want to give you a little glimpse
• 14:47of how he could both entertain.
• 14:50While educating his audience,
• 14:51the performance of the two chimpanzees was
• 14:54no better than the best of The Monkees.
• 14:56Furthermore,
• 14:56the chimpanzees never seemed to
• 14:58really get down to work and put their
• 15:00hearts into psychological testing.
• 15:02At the time we attributed their good
• 15:04natured distract ability to their
• 15:06age instead of the obvious answer.
• 15:07The fact that they were chimpanzees.
• 15:11And then here's one more which
• 15:13really starts to explain why rhesus
• 15:15monkeys are such a superior model.
• 15:17The rhesus monkey lacks the gay
• 15:19abandoned of the cebus monkey,
• 15:21the elegant grace and composure
• 15:22of the spider,
• 15:23or the buffoonery of the chimpanzee.
• 15:25But beneath the Gray or grim
• 15:27exterior of the recess is a central
• 15:30nervous system waiting to grind
• 15:31out 100 test trials of day.
• 15:33The difference between a cebus
• 15:35monkey and a Reese's is all the
• 15:37difference between a southern Belle
• 15:39Anna New England storekeeper.
• 15:40Our primary interest,
• 15:42concerned learning and intelligence.
• 15:43So those are just some examples of
• 15:46the types of writing that I wish
• 15:48we saw more of today and beyond
• 15:50explaining some of the reasons why
• 15:53rhesus monkeys were great models.
• 15:55We now know even more why there,
• 15:57why there's such reliable
• 15:59models for the study of humans.
• 16:02One reason is that rhesus
• 16:03macaques second only to humans,
• 16:05are second only to humans in
• 16:07their geographic distribution.
• 16:08So there's the second most widely
• 16:10distributed primate in the world,
• 16:12and you could see their
• 16:14distribution here on this map.
• 16:18Rhesus macaque San humans also share
• 16:20a high degree of genetic similarity,
• 16:23about 93%, and in fact there are
• 16:26some polymorphisms that are unique
• 16:28only to humans and rhesus macaques.
• 16:33Another limiting factor in human studies is
• 16:35a very long life span that humans have now.
• 16:39This makes it really difficult to study
• 16:41the same people continuously across the
• 16:43lifespan and to get repeated sampling.
• 16:46Whether it's biological
• 16:47or behavioral measures.
• 16:48But rhesus monkeys develop approximately
• 16:504 times faster than humans,
• 16:52and so this makes the study of life
• 16:54course an intergenerational studies
• 16:55possible in a shorter time frame.
• 16:58And the monkeys I'm showing you here
• 17:00are some of my absolute favorites.
• 17:03From my work in Maryland,
• 17:05this is my very favorite monkey
• 17:06mom of all time, Xena,
• 17:08with her infant Zinnia in 2008 and
• 17:10just six years later as India had
• 17:12her own first infant named Rufus.
• 17:14And so we were able to study this whole
• 17:17family together within just a few years time.
• 17:20And as mentioned earlier,
• 17:22nonhuman primates,
• 17:23particularly macaques,
• 17:24have complex cognitive abilities as well
• 17:27as very complex social behavioral repertoire,
• 17:31which are,
• 17:32which are made possible due to their nerdy
• 17:36nuro anatomical similarities to humans.
• 17:40So Harlow's legacy was really far
• 17:43reaching and it still is to this day
• 17:46his research has provided an enduring
• 17:48empirical foundation for future work
• 17:50because of his foundational studies
• 17:53into the formation of attachment.
• 17:55We now as scientists can study the
• 17:58interactions of childhood experiences,
• 18:00genetics, biological factors,
• 18:01and epigenetics just to give some examples.
• 18:05We're also able and wanting to study
• 18:07the vulnerability of children or their
• 18:10resilience and recovery in various
• 18:12health outcomes across the lifespan,
• 18:14and scientists today can answer
• 18:16questions that Harlow could not,
• 18:18because since his foundational studies,
• 18:20we've seen an evolution and such
• 18:23techniques like a neuroimaging
• 18:25and epigenetics research.
• 18:27An his legacy of knowledge.
• 18:31Really illustrate is really illustrated
• 18:33here in this graphic that shows
• 18:36just how far reaching his work is.
• 18:38He's had over 10,000 citations of
• 18:41his work and almost 7000 articles,
• 18:43and you can see the disciplines that
• 18:46his work are cited in here and some
• 18:48of the more interesting or obscur
• 18:51ones include educational research,
• 18:53endocrinology, and metabolism,
• 18:54general internal medicine among others,
• 18:56and so this is really a testament
• 18:59to how science continues to build
• 19:01upon understanding.
• 19:02Formed in the past.
• 19:06Now Harry's legacy, of course,
• 19:08was embodied in his trainees.
• 19:10Fun fact, his very first PhD student
• 19:13was Abraham Maslow who developed
• 19:16Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
• 19:18His dissertation,
• 19:19the role of dominance in
• 19:21social behavior of primates.
• 19:23But of course Harlow had other
• 19:25proteges who carried on his legacy,
• 19:27and this legacy is continued not in his
• 19:29original severe deprivation studies,
• 19:31because no one wants to do those anymore,
• 19:33and no one has done them for many,
• 19:35many years.
• 19:36But he trained his students in the
• 19:38rigorous and carefully research
• 19:40techniques to isolate how early life
• 19:43experiences shape lifelong health,
• 19:45and some of these trainees include
• 19:47his postdoc and undergrad Jim Sackett
• 19:49and Jerry Ruppenthal who moved
• 19:51together in 1970 from Wisconsin to
• 19:53launch the infant Primate Research
• 19:55Lab at the University of Washington,
• 19:57which still to this day, is the nation.
• 20:00Only 24 hours staffed infant primate lab.
• 20:03He also trained Melinda Novak,
• 20:05who after graduating a retaining her
• 20:07PhD moved to UMass Amherst where she
• 20:10recently just retired last year.
• 20:13But for the duration of her career
• 20:15ran a small primate lab,
• 20:18looking at primate cognition
• 20:20and psychological well being.
• 20:22And he trained Steve Suming,
• 20:24who Appan leaving Wisconsin started
• 20:26the lab of comparative mythology.
• 20:28Mythology at NIH,
• 20:29which was an operation for about 35 years,
• 20:32and these people are very important
• 20:34because they are the ones who raised me,
• 20:37at least academically and
• 20:40professionally speaking.
• 20:41Andres is right.
• 20:42I just happened to be sitting in an
• 20:45animal behavior class when I was an
• 20:47undergrad in zoology at University,
• 20:49Washington,
• 20:50and the professor mentioned
• 20:51infant primate lab.
• 20:52So to conducted my undergrad research there,
• 20:54I obtained my Masters and PhD in
• 20:57behavioral neuroscience under the
• 20:58guidance of Melinda Novak, and I did it.
• 21:01My second postdoctoral fellowship in
• 21:03Steve Sumes lab and my work broadens
• 21:05the concept of early attachments
• 21:07to focus on multiple early life
• 21:09experiences that shaped lifelong
• 21:11and intergenerational health.
• 21:14So my research goals are to identify
• 21:17causal mechanisms linking variable early,
• 21:19early life experiences to health
• 21:21outcomes later in life and
• 21:23adolescence and all hood and beyond,
• 21:26and these health outcomes, importantly,
• 21:28are both behavioral and physical,
• 21:30and when I say early life experiences,
• 21:33I really mean a wide ranging of
• 21:36swath of early life experiences,
• 21:39from prenatal and post Natal stress to
• 21:41various variations in maternal experience.
• 21:44Two naturally occurring variations
• 21:45and mother's milk composition,
• 21:46as well as the influence
• 21:48of early attachments.
• 21:49And though I would really love to talk
• 21:52about findings on all of these today,
• 21:54I'll just be focusing on the
• 21:57influence of early attachments.
• 21:58So this body of work I've been
• 22:01fortunate to conduct because of
• 22:03my time spent in Steve Sumes lab,
• 22:06which was an operation from 1983 until
• 22:08just a couple of years ago when he
• 22:11retired and this was an intramural
• 22:14research lab at the NCH Dee Ann.
• 22:16Its three major goals were to study
• 22:18the genetic and environmental factors
• 22:20that shape individual developmental
• 22:22trajectories and also to examine
• 22:25both the continuity and the change,
• 22:27that is to say,
• 22:28those stability of individual differences.
• 22:31Cross development and finally of
• 22:33course to identify the degree of
• 22:36generalizability to both wild monkeys
• 22:38and for our purposes here to humans.
• 22:41And we were able to achieve this
• 22:43because we could tightly control
• 22:45the early life experiences that
• 22:47monkeys were exposed to,
• 22:48and I'm going to take a few moments
• 22:51to describe those in details so they
• 22:53have a firm understanding because
• 22:55they matter for the rest of the talk.
• 22:57So for in our lab the rhesus monkeys
• 22:59were randomly assigned to experience
• 23:01one of three rearing conditions.
• 23:03For the first eight to 10 months of life.
• 23:06Now on average we would have approximately
• 23:0940 infants per year born into the colony.
• 23:11Anne,
• 23:12randomly 50% of these would be mother,
• 23:14period.
• 23:14This was our control condition Reardon.
• 23:16Social groups with many other adult females,
• 23:18adult males and other infants.
• 23:20The other 50% would be randomly assigned
• 23:22to experience a nursery ring for the
• 23:24first eight to 10 months of life and
• 23:27so from birth they would either be
• 23:29one of two nursery reared formats.
• 23:31The first is peer rearing and
• 23:32the 2nd is surrogate peering.
• 23:34So after the first month of life
• 23:36where infants could Thermo regulate
• 23:38and self feed in the nursery,
• 23:40they were then either randomly
• 23:41assigned to be period where they were.
• 23:44A house with other peers from
• 23:46three other peers 24 hours a day.
• 23:48Or they were housed in a single
• 23:50cage with a cloth covered surrogate
• 23:52for the majority of the day.
• 23:54But given daily play sessions with
• 23:56other surrogate period animals so they
• 23:58do not have continual exposure to peers.
• 24:01Now the research over the decades has has.
• 24:07Has shown us that period
• 24:08monkeys actually go on to become
• 24:10exceptionally dependent on each other,
• 24:12hyper dependent and the reason for
• 24:14that is because they both act as the
• 24:16secure attachment base for each other
• 24:18and they have a need for attachment
• 24:21so they're unable to break physically
• 24:22to break apart from each other.
• 24:24Starting at very young ages because
• 24:26of the need of others to cling on to
• 24:29them and so they just kind of form
• 24:31these huddling clusters of monkeys
• 24:33in response to stressful situations.
• 24:35Surrogate period monkeys actually turn out.
• 24:37Developmentally to be much closer
• 24:39to Mother period monkeys,
• 24:41but they are still different and so
• 24:44these protocols are substantially
• 24:45improved over harlows methods because
• 24:48in addition to providing early social
• 24:51experience to the nursery monkeys,
• 24:54which parlors did not?
• 24:55These monkeys were involved in numerous
• 24:57experiences that both tested their
• 25:00cognitive development emotional development,
• 25:02so they had everyday multiple
• 25:05variable rich experiences,
• 25:06not only with researchers.
• 25:09But stimulating?
• 25:11Sort of test sessions that would
• 25:14stimulate their simulate their
• 25:16brains and also had continually
• 25:19rotating environmental enrichment.
• 25:21Now,
• 25:22after the first eight to 10 months of life,
• 25:25these monkeys would then be reared
• 25:26identically in the same housing situation,
• 25:29therefore mimic well.
• 25:30We would form them into a
• 25:31mixed social rearing group.
• 25:33Now this was a really stressful
• 25:35event actually,
• 25:36because what would happen
• 25:37is literally one day.
• 25:39All the monkeys,
• 25:40mother period and nurtured
• 25:41would be up and relocated,
• 25:42put into a new room and said OK,
• 25:45Now you have to get along an imagine
• 25:47that you're suddenly one day taken to
• 25:49a new home with new people and you
• 25:51just have to learn how to get along.
• 25:55So although this was a majorly
• 25:57stressful experience,
• 25:57it was not permanently stressful.
• 25:59They did adapt as you'll see later,
• 26:01but it's important to note that they
• 26:03live in this mixture ING environment
• 26:05with identical care in treatment,
• 26:07essentially for the rest of their lives.
• 26:09Now,
• 26:09at three years of age,
• 26:11and we separated them by *** to avoid
• 26:14unintended pregnancies and females
• 26:15went back into the breeding colony,
• 26:17but they still maintain their
• 26:19mixed rearing groups,
• 26:19and so any differences that we
• 26:22observed after the first eight to 10
• 26:24months of life can be attributed.
• 26:26To the differential early
• 26:27rearing experiences in the first
• 26:29eight to 10 months of life.
• 26:34Now over the last several years,
• 26:36we've been able to look at how
• 26:38these different, tightly controlled,
• 26:39early life experiences
• 26:40influence multiple outcomes.
• 26:41In one of our primary outcomes of
• 26:43interest is cognitive development,
• 26:45which we assess in monkeys from
• 26:47about four to eight months of age,
• 26:49which is equivalent to approximately
• 26:51one to three years in humans,
• 26:53and there's a direct through line
• 26:55from Harlow's very early work on
• 26:57cognitive capabilities to our research.
• 26:58If you remember when I mentioned
• 27:00earlier the W GTA,
• 27:02there was constant general testing apparatus.
• 27:04We use that in the early work and
• 27:06along with standardized battery of
• 27:08cognitive assessments that were developed
• 27:10at the primate lab at Washington,
• 27:12where I was an undergrad in
• 27:14which I was trained on.
• 27:16But up until very recently it was
• 27:18only possible to administer these
• 27:20cognitive assessments to nursery
• 27:21monkeys because of the compounds that
• 27:23would come along with separating
• 27:25temporarily an infant from its mother
• 27:27to give a cognitive tasks well.
• 27:29A few years ago,
• 27:31we decided to tackle this and we
• 27:33devised a method a really simple
• 27:35apparatus to be able to test socially.
• 27:37House Mother period infants.
• 27:39Here on the left,
• 27:40in their home environments and to
• 27:42compare them directly with nursery
• 27:43reared in infants in their home environments.
• 27:46So we had no need for separating
• 27:48infants from their mothers.
• 27:49We got no distress responses and
• 27:51we weren't moving them to a novel
• 27:53room to do the testing.
• 27:55As you saw in this last picture.
• 27:57And I'm going to show a video of
• 27:59what this simple yet I I feel
• 28:01elegant apparatus looked like.
• 28:02So it was a cage within the
• 28:04large floor to ceiling cage,
• 28:06and this cage had a tiny little
• 28:07tunnel that only the infant was small
• 28:09enough to fit through so mom could not
• 28:11prohibit her infant from going in.
• 28:13And I'm here to tell you.
• 28:14As you can see from the video,
• 28:16once the babies learned that they
• 28:18could go in and access streets
• 28:19that mom couldn't get,
• 28:20they were they were all about it.
• 28:22And so you can see this one waiting
• 28:24and as soon as the occluder concern
• 28:26comes in and grabs that treat.
• 28:32So here are some of the tasks
• 28:34that we gave her infants.
• 28:36We gave them a simple training tasks
• 28:38such as simple training tasks that
• 28:39simply where they learn to push aside
• 28:42an object to retrieve a food reward.
• 28:44We followed that with
• 28:45the discrimination task,
• 28:46which was a measure of their ability
• 28:48to associate an object with reward,
• 28:50and so the object that was rewarded
• 28:52would either be a black block or a white
• 28:54block randomly assigned to each infant,
• 28:56and the presentation of
• 28:57those blocks would be.
• 28:59Randomly switched side to
• 29:00side across 25 trials per day.
• 29:03Once they pass that test,
• 29:04we gave them a reversal task to
• 29:06measure their cognitive flexibility.
• 29:08So if Black was previously rewarded,
• 29:09we then rewarded the white block
• 29:11and look to see how long it took
• 29:13them to learn this new Association,
• 29:15and then finally they don't have time
• 29:17to go into the details that video you
• 29:20saw in the last slide was really a
• 29:23task to measure infants impulsivity.
• 29:25And so, in our study of Mother P.
• 29:28Reardon nursery monkeys,
• 29:29we found no global cognitive
• 29:31differences when we looked at
• 29:32cognition in the first year of life,
• 29:34and in fact on 19 different measures,
• 29:37we actually found significant
• 29:38ring effects only for two of them,
• 29:40and one of them actually was on
• 29:42this training task,
• 29:43which does not really.
• 29:47Impact the cognitive development
• 29:48or what we know about cognitive
• 29:50development as a whole.
• 29:52And so this is just one example of
• 29:54data showing the performance on the
• 29:57discrimination and reversal test.
• 29:59Those black white tan.
• 30:00Now in this figure,
• 30:02Mother Pier and monkeys are always
• 30:04presented on the left of the blue line.
• 30:06Here nursery rhyme monkeys,
• 30:08which is both period answer again
• 30:10because they did not differ.
• 30:11They're always presented on the
• 30:13right side of the blue line and what
• 30:15you're looking at is that there are
• 30:17no rearing differences in monkeys bulk rate.
• 30:20That's their refusal to work and
• 30:22how many days it took them to pass
• 30:25the test and how long they took per
• 30:27trial to conduct the tasks or in
• 30:29the percentage of trials correct.
• 30:32And we checked this lack of differences
• 30:34up to the fact that all infants
• 30:36were very carefully acclimatized to
• 30:38testing procedures and to the researchers,
• 30:41and especially that they were
• 30:43comfortable in their home environments.
• 30:44And importantly,
• 30:45we didn't test cognitive capacities
• 30:47under mildly stressful situations,
• 30:48but obviously we might expect that we
• 30:50would see rearing differences there,
• 30:52and we also have not yet been able
• 30:55to look for differences in learning
• 30:57day by day or trial by trial.
• 31:00This is just a gross overview
• 31:02of cognitive development.
• 31:03But looking in that finer detail
• 31:05is something I hope to do when
• 31:08I have a little more time.
• 31:09So with techniques that have
• 31:11emerged in recent years,
• 31:13we've also been able to start probing
• 31:15how early life experiences get under
• 31:17the skin to affect later health,
• 31:19and one of the ways we've
• 31:21looked under the skin
• 31:22is by developing an assay to
• 31:24measure chronic stress by measuring
• 31:26the hormone cortisol in her.
• 31:28Now, cortisol travels through the
• 31:30bloodstream and is deposited into
• 31:32the hair shaft and accumulates
• 31:34over time so that when you take a
• 31:36sample here at the base of the skin,
• 31:38the base close to the skin.
• 31:40Surface, I mean the amount of
• 31:43cortisol that you get is an
• 31:46aggregate representation of.
• 31:48Hypothalamic pituitary adrenal
• 31:50axis activity is basically a
• 31:53phenotypic view of cortisol activity.
• 31:56And to measure cortisol we simply
• 31:58shave patches of hair from the backs
• 32:00of monkeys neck at routine intervals.
• 32:02And since this procedure was
• 32:04developed in monkeys,
• 32:05it's since been adapted for use in humans.
• 32:08Where no, we don't shave large patches,
• 32:10but we get very small samples with
• 32:13scissors and process the samples
• 32:15for cortisol concentrations.
• 32:17Now, if you were in our study
• 32:19of differently reared monkeys,
• 32:21we looked at her cortisol
• 32:23concentrations across development
• 32:24from birth through two years of age.
• 32:26Now remember any differences we
• 32:28see after 8 to 10 months should be
• 32:30attributable to the first months of
• 32:33different early life experiences,
• 32:34and this figure is showing you
• 32:37her cortisol concentrations for
• 32:38all three rearing groups.
• 32:40The blue line indicates that stressful
• 32:42relocation that I mentioned and 1st
• 32:44I want to draw your attention to the
• 32:46fact that prior to relocation those
• 32:48peer weird monkeys, the black squares.
• 32:50The ones I said to develop hyper attachments.
• 32:53Those monkeys had higher her
• 32:55cortisol concentrations than either
• 32:56of the other two groups of monkeys,
• 32:58just at baseline.
• 32:59And these her cortisol concentrations
• 33:02remained elevated for up to a
• 33:04year after the relocation.
• 33:06Surrogate monkeys showed a massive
• 33:08increase in her cortisol after relocation,
• 33:10which also stayed elevated.
• 33:12But importantly by two years of age after
• 33:15they had had sufficient time to acclimate,
• 33:18the monkeys were indistinguishable
• 33:20from one another.
• 33:22Now when we looked at these
• 33:25same monkeys anxious behavior,
• 33:26we found somewhat similar patterns.
• 33:28The monkeys did not develop any
• 33:30anxious or show very much anxious
• 33:32behavior in their home environments.
• 33:35Preload relocation,
• 33:35but understandably all monkeys
• 33:37found this to be a stressful event.
• 33:40An showed massive increases in anxiety,
• 33:42especially if they were nursery reared,
• 33:44but particularly for period monkeys.
• 33:46Again,
• 33:47the squares here those levels of
• 33:49anxious behavior remained elevated
• 33:51for up to one year after relocation.
• 33:54However, by two years of age,
• 33:56again,
• 33:56they were indistinguishable from one another.
• 33:58Now we wanted to know does does
• 34:00her cortisol in infancy before the
• 34:02relocation predict anxious behavior
• 34:04after their stressful relocation?
• 34:06And the answer is yes,
• 34:08we found a significant correlation
• 34:10for all monkeys.
• 34:11But when we broke it down by rearing group.
• 34:15That correlation maybe no surprise,
• 34:16was significant only for purity animals,
• 34:19an this correlation persistent again,
• 34:20for up to one year post relocation.
• 34:26Another important outcome of interest
• 34:27for us is socialrank attainment,
• 34:29which in this study I'm about to
• 34:31present we measured or reassessed in
• 34:33adolescent monkeys age 2 to three years,
• 34:35which is equivalent to about 8
• 34:37to 12 years in human children.
• 34:40Now, rhesus monkeys have a very rigid
• 34:42varying linear dominance hierarchy,
• 34:44which is enforced by often subtle but
• 34:46sometimes not so subtle behaviors.
• 34:48So sometimes even a sideways glance will be
• 34:51enough to tell one monkey who's in charge,
• 34:53by the way, notice in the background who's
• 34:56watching this interaction and learning
• 34:59some really important social cues.
• 35:01Other behaviors that reinforce the
• 35:03dominance hierarchy are threat displays,
• 35:05and then if they get a really escalated
• 35:07monkeys will physically chase and
• 35:09attack each other.
• 35:11Now, the way the hierarchy goes is that
• 35:14monkey A will always win against Monkey B,
• 35:17who never loses to anyone except a monkey a.
• 35:21But monkey be never loses to
• 35:23monkey see and so on and so on.
• 35:26And once hierarchies are formed very,
• 35:28they're rather stable.
• 35:29And so,
• 35:30although there are important differences,
• 35:32rhesus monkey social status is a good
• 35:34proxy of socioeconomic status in humans,
• 35:36because those at the top have greater
• 35:39access to resources like social partners,
• 35:41desirable social partners,
• 35:42better food,
• 35:43or first access to food.
• 35:44The best shelter which for monkeys
• 35:47is a shady spot on a hot day,
• 35:49and both monkeys and humans use their
• 35:52power to access those resources.
• 35:54So in our study of juvenile monkeys,
• 35:57we found that nursery reared
• 35:59juveniles both period and surrogate
• 36:01reared occupied lower social
• 36:02ranks than mother reared monkeys.
• 36:04And this was a finding that held
• 36:07true for adults as well once they
• 36:09were eight to eight years or older.
• 36:12But we had an interesting caveat here.
• 36:15So we looked to see whether her cortisol,
• 36:18the chronic stress measure,
• 36:19could was affiliated with social rank and
• 36:22in adulthood only for Mother Period monkeys,
• 36:24which is the solid black line.
• 36:26Was there significant correlation such
• 36:28that mother period monkeys with higher
• 36:30her cortisol indicative of greater stress,
• 36:32ranked lower on the hierarchy?
• 36:34But this a filler.
• 36:36This relationship was not present
• 36:38for the nursery room monkeys,
• 36:40so we look back in time to that stressful
• 36:44relocation and we found that once
• 36:46again from other peer reared monkeys,
• 36:49only their ability to regulate cortisol,
• 36:51their changes in cortisol across
• 36:53several months following relocation
• 36:55significantly predicted their dominant
• 36:57status only if they were mother appeared,
• 36:59and so this suggests that there
• 37:02is a stress regulation is.
• 37:04Is out of wack in nursery monkeys
• 37:07an that this dysregulation likely
• 37:08begins in adolescence and maybe a
• 37:11predictor of adult social status.
• 37:16So recall that I just showed
• 37:18you that higher ranking monkeys
• 37:19are more likely to be mother,
• 37:22period, and this is a particular
• 37:24importance for this next study,
• 37:25which examined differential DNA metalation
• 37:27in the placenta of high middle ranking
• 37:30monkeys versus low ranking monkeys.
• 37:32And remember the high ranking
• 37:34monkey placentas are more likely to
• 37:36come from mother period animals.
• 37:38And so we studied DNA methylation
• 37:40as another way to look under this
• 37:43skin because DNA changes the
• 37:45activity of a DNA sequence without
• 37:47changing its structure or sequence.
• 37:50An importantly,
• 37:51because Miss Metalation typically
• 37:52acts to alter later gene expression.
• 37:56And so we found dramatic differences
• 37:57in DNA methylation in the placenta
• 37:59of monkeys that were high ranking
• 38:01versus low ranking,
• 38:02and that's what this heat map
• 38:04here is showing you.
• 38:05All you need to know is the high,
• 38:07medium, low rank,
• 38:08high medium ranking monkeys are on
• 38:10the left side and the low ranking
• 38:12monkeys are on the right side.
• 38:14An blue is low levels of metalation
• 38:16red is high levels of metalation.
• 38:18You could see that their patterns
• 38:20of methylations are essentially
• 38:22opposite each other.
• 38:23And further,
• 38:24exploration revealed that the dramatic
• 38:27differences in Diamet DNA metalation
• 38:29were particularly located in networks
• 38:32that are critical to cell morphology,
• 38:35cell growth and differentiation,
• 38:37and cell signaling.
• 38:39All vital,
• 38:40important, vital,
• 38:41and functions for placental Physiology.
• 38:43We also found that the upstream
• 38:46regulators of these gene networks included
• 38:49glucocorticoid receptor target genes,
• 38:51which indicates to us that.
• 38:54The stress stress response is
• 38:56particularly important here,
• 38:57and so the broad scope of
• 39:00methylation differences here,
• 39:01as well as the fact that these
• 39:04metalation differences affected tissue.
• 39:05That's vital for fetal development,
• 39:07really illustrates the profound biological
• 39:09effect that socialrank likely achieved,
• 39:11partly by early rearing may
• 39:13have on the next generation,
• 39:15and this is important because
• 39:17in translating it to humans,
• 39:19these have really important implications
• 39:22for our understanding of the impacts
• 39:24of social equality or inequality.
• 39:26Of the well being and care of pregnant women,
• 39:30and it underscores the need for
• 39:32appropriate interventions for women,
• 39:34particularly those who may be
• 39:36disadvantaged and more likely
• 39:38to suffer from social stress.
• 39:40And so this body of work represented
• 39:42one of our first forays into
• 39:45the intergenerational effects.
• 39:46Of early secure attachments.
• 39:48Because the placenta is of fetal
• 39:50origin and so therefore we may be
• 39:53starting to see here in this study
• 39:55the impacts of secure attachments
• 39:57on the next generation.
• 40:02So only now has it been possible to
• 40:05extend the findings of Goon Park.
• 40:07Beyond offspring development an
• 40:09into multiple generations and
• 40:10we can do this now because we
• 40:13have transferred the entire NCH,
• 40:15the rhesus monkey data set.
• 40:16Both biological and behavioral
• 40:18to the Yale Child Study Center.
• 40:20So we now hold longitudinal perspective
• 40:23and comprehensive data collected over
• 40:25the course of 25 years or more on
• 40:27multiple generations of monkeys in
• 40:29sufficient numbers to be able to begin.
• 40:32To rigorously test the causal
• 40:34influences of disruptions to
• 40:36early secure attachments and some
• 40:38of the data we hold include.
• 40:40Thousands like 25,000 or more
• 40:43biological samples, blood plasma,
• 40:45Cerebro, spinal fluid saliva,
• 40:47extracted DNA RNA,
• 40:49white blood samples and hair samples,
• 40:52among others.
• 40:53We hold extensive neonatal assessments,
• 40:56measuring neurological development
• 40:58and function across the first month
• 41:01of life on multiple generations.
• 41:04And we have health records,
• 41:06weight and BMI data,
• 41:08pregnancy outcomes, social behavior,
• 41:09rank data and much more.
• 41:14And one of the aspects that makes this
• 41:17archival data set such a goldmine and so
• 41:19unique is that we have data on multiple
• 41:22generations of monkeys that were reared
• 41:24in one of four different sequences.
• 41:27So we help now hold intergenerational
• 41:29data on mother offspring pairs that were
• 41:32either mother, period, mother period.
• 41:34So the mothers themselves were
• 41:37weird with their mothers and their
• 41:39infants were mother reared.
• 41:41Or we have a data on monkeys who
• 41:44were reared by their mothers,
• 41:45but their infants reared in the nursery.
• 41:49We have data on monkeys who were who
• 41:50were the mothers were nursery reared,
• 41:52and their infants were also nursery.
• 41:54Weird and where mothers were nurtured.
• 41:56But they reared their own infants.
• 41:59And so, several years ago we forged a
• 42:02unique collaboration with behavioral
• 42:04economists at the University of Chicago,
• 42:06led by Doctor James Heckman, who,
• 42:09as Andres mentioned at the outset,
• 42:11was the Nobel Laureate in Economics in 2000,
• 42:15and is best known for his birth to
• 42:18five research and policy advocacy now.
• 42:20This collaboration,
• 42:21previously found single generation effects
• 42:23of different early life experiences,
• 42:25so the work found that that
• 42:28monkeys experiencing adverse.
• 42:29Adversity early in life via lack of a
• 42:32secure attachment had adverse health
• 42:34outcomes in adolescence and adulthood.
• 42:37But we're now extending this work with
• 42:40the collaborators of pictured here,
• 42:42to study the causal effects of different
• 42:44early attachments on subsequent generations,
• 42:46and this is the work I'm going
• 42:49to finish out with today.
• 42:51So with funding from the National
• 42:52Science Foundation in this
• 42:54first intergenerational study,
• 42:55we capitalized on the randomization of
• 42:58early life experiences in monkeys to
• 43:00quantify the degree of the impact that
• 43:02maternal presence has on offspring health.
• 43:05And we published these findings recently.
• 43:07In a working paper at the National
• 43:10Bureau of Economic Research,
• 43:11and we address a major limitation in
• 43:13human studies by being able to carefully
• 43:16control the early life experiences of
• 43:18monkeys and study them across generations.
• 43:20And so these four rearing sequences
• 43:23that I just showed you allow us
• 43:25to test on the one hand,
• 43:27the potential benefit of sustained,
• 43:29secure attachment across generations
• 43:30here in the Blue Square and on
• 43:33the other hand we can also test
• 43:35whether it's possible to compensate.
• 43:37For a lack of secure attachment.
• 43:40Here in the red, on the right,
• 43:43and by comparing the differences in
• 43:46outcomes between the intergenerational
• 43:48groups here in the orange,
• 43:49we can describe how the effects
• 43:52on the offspring depend on the
• 43:54parents early rearing environments.
• 43:56An this comparison is something that
• 43:59economists call intergenerational
• 44:00complementarity,
• 44:00and this analysis allows us to
• 44:03learn more than just the benefit
• 44:05of secure attachments in a single
• 44:07generation the mother's generation.
• 44:10We can now learn about the
• 44:12importance of sustained,
• 44:14secure attachments across generations,
• 44:15as well as the importance of investing
• 44:19early in the parents generation versus
• 44:21trying to compare or to compensate
• 44:24in the offspring's generation.
• 44:26So our behavioral economics economist
• 44:28friends use their sophisticated equation
• 44:30modeling to conduct all these tests,
• 44:33which I call fancy voodoo magic
• 44:35and to calculate these benefits.
• 44:38So we relied on archival data from
• 44:41over 650 mother offspring pairs
• 44:43with roughly equal representation
• 44:45across the four rearing sequences.
• 44:48An we first focused on initial
• 44:50intergenerational impacts,
• 44:51namely pregnancy outcomes did the infant's
• 44:53birth result in a live birth yes or no?
• 44:56Did the infant survive past the first
• 44:59month and what was its birth weight?
• 45:01And these can be considered pre
• 45:03treatment outcomes since most of them
• 45:05occur prior to randomize conditions.
• 45:09Now we found no intergenerational
• 45:11effect on the probability of an
• 45:14offspring being born live versus
• 45:16stillborn or on its birth weight.
• 45:18But we did find significant intergenerational
• 45:20effect on infant survivability,
• 45:22so infants of moms who were reared with
• 45:25their mothers had a survival rate that
• 45:28was 2.9% higher than infants reared
• 45:30by mothers who were nursery rears.
• 45:32I'll say that one more time the infants and
• 45:36mothers whose own mothers were mother weird.
• 45:40Had a 2.9% higher survival rate than
• 45:43infants whose mothers were nursery reared.
• 45:47So we then examine long term
• 45:50intergenerational impacts,
• 45:50both of which occurred after the
• 45:53experimental rearing conditions ended.
• 45:55After that relocation,
• 45:56and unlike the previous results,
• 45:58these outcomes can be affected both
• 46:00by the mother's ring condition and
• 46:02the offspring zone rearing condition.
• 46:05One of these outcomes was adolescent health,
• 46:08measured at one to three years,
• 46:10which is approximately 4 to 4
• 46:13to 12 years in humans.
• 46:15And for this we looked at the
• 46:18percentage of quarterly vet exams in
• 46:20which the animal was in good health,
• 46:23meaning the animal did not require treatment
• 46:25for a problem like wounding diarrhea,
• 46:28which is common in monkey colonies,
• 46:30skin rash,
• 46:31dermatitis surgeries, etc.
• 46:32And in adulthood we measured
• 46:34their social rank attainment
• 46:35and this was actually earlier.
• 46:37The age span range from 2 to 15 years,
• 46:40but the majority of animals were
• 46:43in adulthood.
• 46:45An the hear their relative rank in
• 46:48their social groups range from 0.05
• 46:50lowest on the totem pole to 1.0 highest.
• 46:54Alright,
• 46:54so for both health and social status,
• 46:57the only significant effects again
• 46:59war for Mother period offspring
• 47:01whose mothers were themselves
• 47:02mother reared for good health.
• 47:04This resulted in an increase of 6.7
• 47:07percentage points and for social rank.
• 47:10This resulted in an increase of .17 points,
• 47:13which is pretty remarkable
• 47:14considering the scope of the scale.
• 47:17Here I should say there were
• 47:19no no significant effects for
• 47:22other rearing sequences.
• 47:24So the big question is,
• 47:26is the difference in
• 47:27intergenerational effects Mother
• 47:28period versus nursery offspring?
• 47:30Is that statistically significant?
• 47:32Well,
• 47:32we formally tested this again
• 47:35by measuring intergenerational
• 47:37complimentarity and the answer is yes.
• 47:39We found a strong and significant
• 47:42intergenerational complementarity such
• 47:44that the effect of secure attachment
• 47:47is more beneficial for offspring whose
• 47:50mothers also had a secure attachment.
• 47:52And the effect was as follows.
• 47:55Mother periods,
• 47:56offspring time and good health was
• 47:58increased by 9.7% versus nurture
• 48:00offspring and socialrank was
• 48:02increased by .24 points more and
• 48:05then for nursery reared offspring.
• 48:07Now because only mother period offspring
• 48:09can interact with their mothers.
• 48:11But nursery monkeys cannot.
• 48:13Any positive effects on Mother Period.
• 48:16Offspring here must be post needle
• 48:18because the in uteral prenatal
• 48:21effects were the same for both groups.
• 48:24So we therefore conclude that
• 48:26the improved parenting received
• 48:27by Mother Period offspring,
• 48:29because their own mothers had
• 48:31secure attachments early in life.
• 48:33This improved parenting is the
• 48:35primary channel through which
• 48:36early life advantage in the
• 48:38parents generation in the form of
• 48:40a secure attachment is transmitted to
• 48:43the next generation versus prenatal in
• 48:45utero effects an it's clear now that
• 48:48these affect start very early in life,
• 48:50as evidenced by survival rates
• 48:52and persist until adulthood,
• 48:54as evidenced by socialrank.
• 48:58So these first findings on intergenerational
• 49:01effects of early advantage have
• 49:04really important implications.
• 49:05There is strong importance to ensure that
• 49:09all children experience secure attachments,
• 49:11particularly children who start
• 49:14out life in with disadvantage.
• 49:17These findings also really underscore
• 49:19the need for investments into parents
• 49:22and families not just into children or
• 49:25infants so that families can engage
• 49:27in forming secure attachments with
• 49:29their children and when parents and
• 49:32caregivers and families are denied,
• 49:34denied. Access to.
• 49:37Abilities to enable them to
• 49:40meet their basic needs,
• 49:42they just don't have the
• 49:44resources to Additionally be able
• 49:46to form the secure bonds.
• 49:47So when they're denied
• 49:49extended paid parental leave,
• 49:50both mothers and fathers when they
• 49:52don't have access to high quality early
• 49:55childhood education an also by the way,
• 49:58when early educators are
• 50:00not paid appropriately.
• 50:01When people don't have a living
• 50:03wage and when they lack food,
• 50:05housing and health security,
• 50:06you can begin to see how it could be
• 50:09much harder to invest the resources
• 50:11needed in forming secure attachments that
• 50:14those of us with more privileged means have.
• 50:18So what's next?
• 50:19Well,
• 50:20with current and future funding,
• 50:21we aim to identify the biological
• 50:24mechanisms of secure attachments.
• 50:25At least some of them,
• 50:27and so with this current NSF funding
• 50:30in collaboration with Michael Kobor
• 50:31at University of British Columbia,
• 50:34we're going to look at DNA
• 50:36metalation across generations.
• 50:37As one of these under the skin
• 50:39mechanisms an we're also going to begin
• 50:42probing in inflammation both within a
• 50:44single generation an across generations,
• 50:46and I've just recently been awarded.
• 50:49This pilot award from the animal
• 50:51models for the social dimensions of
• 50:53health and Aging Research Network,
• 50:55which is a National Institute
• 50:57of Aging Research Network,
• 50:58to start looking at a chronic
• 51:00inflammation across the life course,
• 51:02and I plan in the next few months to
• 51:05apply for further funding from the
• 51:07foundations and institutes you see here,
• 51:10including one opportunity.
• 51:11I'm really excited about.
• 51:12Again from NIH.
• 51:13It's for early stage investigators
• 51:15using nonhuman primate models.
• 51:17And in addition to these two DNA,
• 51:20metalation information will
• 51:22obviously also be probing for
• 51:24other biological mechanisms.
• 51:26I also want to take a moment to talk
• 51:29about how we're expanding our hair.
• 51:32Cortisol or chronic stress studies
• 51:34so we're acquiring equipment now to
• 51:37set up a lab to be able to run her
• 51:39cortisol assays here in house at Yale,
• 51:41and I'm really bummed because
• 51:43right before Pandemic hit and we
• 51:45were required to go into lockdown,
• 51:47I was just preparing an IRB protocol
• 51:49to study with a colleague and
• 51:52collaborator University of Virginia.
• 51:53A different type of early life
• 51:55experience and that is bearable.
• 51:57Educational environments,
• 51:58so we're going to compare a children
• 52:01in public Montessori schools
• 52:04with standard public education.
• 52:06Pedagogy and look at see how their
• 52:08hair cortisol change across the
• 52:10year and how that influenced their
• 52:12academic and social emotional outcomes.
• 52:14So we hope to resume this once
• 52:16it's safe to do so with additional
• 52:18colleagues at University of Chicago,
• 52:20we just submitted a research grant,
• 52:22a small pilot award to look at
• 52:25the hair cortisol of black mothers
• 52:27whose prenatal and post Natal care
• 52:29has been disrupted due to covid.
• 52:32And with colleagues here at
• 52:34the Yale School of Nursing,
• 52:35we're about to submit a grant
• 52:38to the National Heart, Lung,
• 52:40and Blood Institute to examine
• 52:42how chronic stress may be,
• 52:44what role it may have in a sleep
• 52:46disorders and cardiovascular function.
• 52:48But one could also envision
• 52:50studying other hormones in her.
• 52:52It's possible to measure,
• 52:54for example, progesterone,
• 52:55estradiol and testosterone,
• 52:56and maybe some of you have an interest
• 53:00in studying other elements in her.
• 53:02That might measure environmental
• 53:03exposures like trace elements or
• 53:05heavy metals or tobacco exposure.
• 53:07So if any of these sound interesting to you,
• 53:10please get in touch with me after the talk.
• 53:15And so with that I would like to
• 53:17conclude by acknowledging our funders
• 53:19have made all of this work possible
• 53:21today that I've shared with you,
• 53:23along with the numerous people who work
• 53:25behind the scenes to present these data.
• 53:28And I would be remiss if I did not
• 53:30acknowledge my own caregivers who gave
• 53:32me the best form of secure attachment
• 53:34from the moment I was born two months
• 53:37early as a preemie who could fit in
• 53:39a shoe box all the way up until now.
• 53:42Not only do they provide me with
• 53:44the secure loving base, but.
• 53:46Pretty good peer interactions
• 53:47with my sister too.
• 53:49So with that I'm going to leave you
• 53:51with one more quote by Harry Harlow,
• 53:54perhaps, and in which he was describing.
• 53:57An anecdotal behavior he had seen where
• 54:00a monkey used a stick as a weapon.
• 54:03Perhaps we should be criticized for
• 54:05not reporting these behaviors earlier,
• 54:06but in my defense,
• 54:08let me state that in the mid 30s,
• 54:10comparative psychology had attained
• 54:11a level of objectivity that made
• 54:13reporting such behavior a matter
• 54:15of grave risk to the reputation
• 54:16of any ambitious young scientists.
• 54:18And it is better to become famous
• 54:21slowly than to be right all at once.
• 54:24Alright, so that is it.
• 54:26Thank you very much all for being
• 54:29here and and especially for you know,
• 54:32enlightening me in here and let me
• 54:34regale you with my monkey tails.
• 54:37So thank you. Amanda, thank you so much.
• 54:42We are out of time,
• 54:43but we're going to leave them open and
• 54:45I'll stick around and whomever wants
• 54:47to stick around Papparazi's questions
• 54:48if you need to leave, that's fine.
• 54:50If you want to stay hang out but Amanda,
• 54:53thank you. I will be so much.
• 54:55Yes,
• 54:55thank you so much for the invitation on
• 54:57race and I really hope to see as many of
• 54:59you as possible in person again soon.
• 55:02Thank you.