Health Tips London: By studying social stress that moulds monkey
immune system, researchers have shed light on how the stress of low
socioeconomic status may impact human health and how individuals' bodies
adapt after a shift in their social environment.
Researchers, who conducted the study with rhesus macaques at the
Yerkes National Primate Research Center, insisted that if a monkey's
social status changes, her immune system changes along with it.
Researchers led by Jenny Tung, PhD, said they can predict a rhesus
macaque's rank within a small group by examining gene expression levels
in her immune cells.
Primate researchers can tell macaques' social rank by watching them
engage in competitive interactions, such as grooming and accessing food
and water. Tung and her colleagues studied 10 groups of female macaques
(five each) in which researchers could manipulate individuals' social
rank. Before being placed into new groups, all of the macaques started
out as middle rank. "In the wild, macaques inherit their social rank
from their mothers" Tung said.
"But in our research, the order of introduction determines rank; the
newcomer is generally lower status. When some macaques' status changed
after a newcomer arrived, so did their patterns of immune system gene
activity.".....
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