EnviroLink Forum

I think the problem is endemic within the industry. This study is focused on only two chimps who are now at Fauna (sanctuary in Canada), but are representative of other chimps rescued or retired from research who are now in sanctuary throughout North America and Europe. Isolation and mother infant separation are only two mistreatments they received which resulted in their mental illness.[/quote]

The two edged sword has been explained to you. Your ARA buds claim that emotions/physiology & brains of Chimps are not up to snuff if they test on primates because they are not wired like humans. Then you folks offer that primates showed emotions at Dorothy's burial. That sword cuts both ways and Animal researchers win on all counts.If the good Doctors picked Chimps because they have been wired for emotions and their DNA rates close to our own as well as their physical makeup then of course good drugs for humans can be found by testing Chimps. [/quote][/quote]

The "two-edged sword" has been explained to me has it? Wow, I feel so enlightened now. Donny, I can clearly see from this extremely convoluted post that you are confused but you don't know you are confused. You think you are making sense but it is so convoluted and confused that I don't even know where to begin to unravel the knot of your thinking. It is a complete jumble.

I'll get back to you and see what I can do but for now, I'm going trick or treatin'! See ya!

bumped for AF since it was again conveniently ignored.

AF Wrote:

I am 100% in the position to tell someone they don't make sense if they don't make sense. I am 100% in the position to tell it the way I see it - just as you are. I am 100% in position to explain anything to anyone if I think I have something to explain - just as you are.

Cobie asked if I could provide references - peer reviewed. I responded that I could provide references and I did. There are many abstracts of experiemnts available - the experiments are either complete, as int he case of Rosenblum, or underway in which case they wouldn't have made it to the peer- reviewd stage. Cobie is certainly aware of Rosenblum's experiments in maternal deprivation. I wonder if she is aware of the PTSD diagnosed in so many primates who have made it to shelters?

No, actually, it isn't futile at all. I don't want to wade into the health care debate with you Grizzly which is why I didn't answer your question - it seems futile and would lead to more useless internet-arguing. Besides, Iberia came to light and I am very concerened with the use of chimps and other primates in the business of animal experimentation. One needs time and I have a life. I think I've pretty much said what I needed to about health care. The insurance companies are taking the public for a ride and living high on the hog while 45 million or so don't have health care. The US has the highest health care costs in the world yet still only rank, what is it? 37th or 38th out of all industrialized nations. Hmmmm - why is that I wonder? Seems fundamentally corrupt when insurance companies can refuse insurance to people because of some pre-existing condition. I believe this power they have makes life very difficult for many - especially women. Miscarriage? irregular pap smear? abusive spouse? yeast infection? Anyway, I believe I've already said just as much as I want to say on the issue and I don't believe the board has any rule which compels anyone to continue a discussion they don't want to continue. I don't really want to continue this discussion with you Grizzly but maybe someone else around here does.

As for getting a straight answer out of me - I really doubt you've ever had a problem doing that as I am neither intellectually dishonest nor am I evasive although I believe you would probably feel better believing these things about me.

Animal-friendly – Hello again!

I had written: "I found it interesting to read that though these experiments may be considered singularly macabre, there were actually just as and more gruesome use of animals (though not with primates, I don’t think) going on during the time of Harlow’s separation and isolation experiments."

Animal-friendly, you responded: “It seems there are many, both in Harlow's time and in present day, who view these experiments as macabre. It also seems to be a prevailing view that since Harlow has already done these experiemnts and proven that human children need love and nurturance, that at least we don't need to do these experiments anymore. They were cruel, but "necessary" and it's all over now anyway. But are you aware that similar use of primates are still being conducted in research labs today? ... for the benefit of human psychology? There are researchers who are purposely inducing psychosis in monkeys in order to study, for instance, levels of stress.”


I responded: I know there have been touch deprivation studies on primates to understand its impact on stress-hormone response and immunological responsiveness, and the power stimulating the skin to moderate stress hormonal responses. I’m not sure if nonhuman primates are being subjected to the kind of conditions, physical, emotional and psychological, of deprivation and isolation that Harlow’s monkeys experienced. Whether there was a level of suffering that Harlow was permitted to inflict that would not be allowed today. I admit, I don’t know, A-F. Though, I’ve seen literature social isolation of rats to test peptide levels.”

Animal-friendly: “Oops - and I forgot to attach these links which I think you may find interesting. What is mind-boggling to me is that Harlow's work has spurred much of the same. Haven't we figured it out yet? Apparantly not as there are maternal deprivation studies STILL carried out. The last two links are more to the point, but the first lists isolation and maternal separation as reasons for PTSD.

http://www.releasechimps.org/pdfs/ExecS ... aFINAL.pdf
http://www.mrmcmed.org/mom.html
http://www.awionline.org/ht/d/ContentDe ... 3/pid/2518.”

_ _ -

Thanks for the links to show that maternal deprivation studies still go on. I wonder if some of the examples given in the one link would qualify as primary literature, or peer-reviewed references from mainstream journals. This link you gave was of interest: http://www.awionline.org/ht/d/ContentDe ... 3/pid/2518 Forcibly Breaking the Maternal Bond, By Cathy Liss. Liss states: “Although ethically unacceptable, maternal deprivation studies still are practiced to investigate in even greater detail all possible distress responses resulting from maternal deprivation. In the last two years, eight maternal deprivation studies involving 23 different researchers at seven institutions have been published in scientific journals. In all eight studies rhesus macaque babies were taken away from their mothers shortly after birth. They were reared singly for several weeks and subsequently pair- or group-housed with other mother-deprived infants.


Various parameters of the mother-deprived infants were then compared with those of mother-reared infants. The following quotes summarize the rationale behind the investigations and the scientific "discoveries" made.”


I looked up the quotes she gives. I could not get full texts (without paying) to see how the animals were used, their environments and length of separation. So, not sure if they are as "macabre" as Harlow's maternal and social isolation experiments; though one may feel that isolation is isolation, however and for whatever reason it is done in the lab and that it's "torture", and the point, for you, was to show they are still done. Abstracts from the quotes in the article I found are as follows.


http://www.asp.org/asp2001/abstractDisp ... EventID=79

(1998-2000 ? ?)

Long-term effects of infant rearing condition on the acquisition of dominance rank in juvenile and adult rhesus macaques (macaca mulatta)

M. Bastian1; A. Sponberg1; S. Suomi2 and J. Higley1
1Laboratory of Clinical Studies, NIAAA, NIH Animal Center, Bldg.112/Rm.205, P.O.Box 529 Fisher Ave., Poolesville, Maryland, 20837, USA, 2Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, NICHD


Previous research has linked maternal deprivation in infant monkeys to subsequent social deficits. Little is known, however, about the development of social competence in monkeys reared with limited peer interactions as compared to mother- and peer-reared monkeys. In two studies, we examined the effects of early rearing experience on the development of dominance status in juvenile (N=53) and then in adult (N=38) rhesus monkeys. We predicted that both as juveniles and through adulthood, mother-reared (MR) monkeys would outrank both their peer-reared (PR) and surrogate-peer-reared (SPR) counterparts and PR monkeys would rank higher than SPR subjects. Agonistic dyadic interactions were recorded and summarized into a win/lose matrix to produce dominance ranks. Juvenile MR and PR subjects did not differ in ranks, but monkeys from both rearing backgrounds outranked SPR cage-mates. At age 3, males outranked females. Although animals who eventually obtained high or low rank were identical in weight prior to group formation, subjects who ranked highest by age 3 gained the most weight between yrs 1-3 of life regardless of rearing condition, suggesting that low dominance status may lead to inhibited developmental growth. Adult MR subjects outranked both PR and SPR subjects, with PR animals occupying intermediate ranks. These findings indicate that impoverished early rearing experiences, such as adult absence and varying degrees of social isolation, are useful predictors of future social success in rhesus monkeys.

American Society of Primatologists
Copyright © 1996 - 2001 by the American Society of Primatologists


Also, at http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14457102

Titre du document / Document title
Long-term effects of infant rearing condition on the acquisition of dominance rank in juvenile and adult rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)
Auteur(s) / Author(s)
BASTIAN Meredith L. ; SPONBERG Anne C. ; SUOMI Stephen J. ; HIELEV J. Dee ;

Résumé / Abstract
We examined the effects of early rearing experience on the development of dominance status in 53 juvenile (age 3) and then in 38 adult (ages 5-8) rhesus macaques. Based on previous research investigating the behavioral outcomes of nursery-rearing, we predicted that mother-reared (MR) monkeys would outrank peer-only reared (PR) monkeys, which would in turn outrank surrogate/ peer-reared (SPR) subjects. Juvenile MR and PR subjects did not differ in ranks, but monkeys from both rearing backgrounds outranked SPR cage-mates at age 3. Independent of rearing condition, high-ranking juveniles gained the most weight between ages 1-3, suggesting that low status may be associated with decreases in early weight gain. Adult MR subjects outranked both PR and SPR subjects, with PR animals occupying intermediate ranks. These results indicate that impoverished early experiences, such as adult absence and limited social interaction, are useful predictors of future social success in rhesus macaques.

Revue / Journal Title
Developmental psychobiology ISSN 0012-1630 CODEN DEPBA5
Source / Source
2003, vol. 42, no1, pp. 44-51 [8 page(s) (article)]


(2) http://www.asp.org/asp2001/abstractDisp ... ventID=102

Early rearing environment related to differences in rhesus monkey (macaca mulatta) personality as assessed through subjective questionnaire

h. rupp1 and a. bennett2
1Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, P.O. Box 529, Fisher Ave., Poolesville, MD, 20837, USA, 2Laboratory of Clinical Studies, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Although monkeys with early maternal and social deprivation show later behavioral and affective deficits compared to their maternally-reared counterparts, the extent to which these differences may be captured by subjectively-measured personality ratings remains relatively unexplored. Previous nonhuman primate subjective personality assessment has uncovered differences associated with subjects’ age and gender. We examined the influence of early social deprivation on personality using a subjective rating scale developed by Stevenson-Hinde and Zunz (1978) to assess 89 rhesus monkeys (34 male, 55 female, 39 adolescent, 50 adult). Subjects were reared by mothers in social groups (MR; n=37) or with age-mate peers in a nursery (NR; n=52). Principal components analysis of 21 mean trait scores yielded factors similar in number and composition to previous work and were interpreted as: Confidence, Excitability, and Sociability. The factor scores were subjected to multiple regression analysis with rearing, age, and sex as independent variables. Concurrent with previous literature, females and younger subjects were more Sociable than males (p=.039), and older subjects (p<.0001). Excitability was higher for younger than older subjects (p=.03). Only Confidence differentiated for rearing groups, with NR lower than MR (p=.026). These results confirm age and gender as significant predictors of personality differences. Rearing effects appear attainable by subjective assessment only for robust dominance-related traits and suggest the use of these tools as additions rather than alternatives to behavioral approaches.

American Society of Primatologists
Copyright © 1996 - 2001 by the American Society of Primatologists, All Rights


(3) http://www.asp.org/asp2001/abstractDisp ... ventID=184

The effects of early rearing on response to novelty and the solution of a simple psychomotor learning task.

P. Pierre; T. Nicholson and S. J. Suomi National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, P.O. Box 529, Poolesville, MD, 20837

Infant monkeys reared in peer groups or with inanimate surrogates show deficits in social and affiliative behavior compared to mother-reared counterparts. It has been suggested that the behavioral deficits associated with these rearing conditions contribute to diminished problem-solving abilities of nursery-reared subjects. The purpose of this investigation was to assess the effect of different rearing conditions on responsiveness to and acquisition of a simple psychomotor task early in development. Eight (4 peer-reared and 4 surrogate-peer-reared), 3-5 month old, infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) served as subjects. We measured initial interactions following the introduction of a “novel” perch and found peer-reared monkeys took longer to contact this novel component of environment as compared to surrogate-peer-reared monkeys (T(6)=5.19, p<.001). By using a finger maze in an effort to differentiate motor maturational components of responding from problem-solving ability, we found peer-reared monkeys took longer than their surrogate peer reared counterparts to contact the maze (T(6)=4.27,p<.001). Similarly, the surrogate-peer- reared monkeys also made more attempts to retrieve a pellet from the maze (T(6)=4.48, p<.001). Regardless of rearing condition, all monkeys were able to solve the task within four, 20 min trials. Taken together, these data provide a framework for further assessment of individual and between-group differences in responsiveness of animals with different rearing experiences.

American Society of Primatologists
Copyright © 1996 - 2001 by the American Society of Primatologists


(4) http://www.asp.org/asp2001/abstractDisp ... ventID=190

Sex differences in brain volume of infant rhesus macaques

R. Hommer1; D. Rio2; R. Momenan2; P. Roma1; M. Champoux1; S. Higley1; J. Higley2; D. Hommer2 and S. Suomi1
1Lab. of Comparative Ethology, NICHD, NIHAC, Poolesville, MD, 20837, USA, 2Lab. of Clinical Studies, NIAAA, NIH

It is well known that in humans males have larger brain volumes than do females and that this disparity appears early in life, long before large differences in body weight develop. Sex based differences in brain volume have been demonstrated in older juvenile and adult macaques, but no infant studies have been conducted. There is also considerable evidence that early life experiences can affect brain development in human and nonhuman primates. We measured the brain volumes of 14 infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): 7 males (3 peer-reared, 4 mother-reared) and 7 females (4 peer-reared, 3 mother-reared). Full, volumetric multiple echo images were collected using a 4.7 T scanner. Although males and females did not differ in body weight, males had significantly larger brain volumes than did females (males = 87.9 ± 7.7 ml; females = 73.5 ± 14.4 ml; t(12)=2.33; p<0.05). There was no significant difference in brain volume between mother- and peer-reared subjects. However, the two groups differed significantly in body weight. An ANCOVA co-varying for weight and age showed a trend for peer-reared monkeys to have smaller brains than mother-reared [F(1,8) = 4.45, p = 0.07]. Our results suggest that with regards to sex differences the brain growth pattern of rhesus macaques resembles that of humans. Further study is needed to illuminate a possible relationship between rearing condition and brain volume.

American Society of Primatologists


(5)
http://www.asp.org/asp2001/abstractDisp ... EventID=75

Controllability of the environment in surrogate-peer reared rhesus monkey infants, M. Champoux; R. Hommer; P. Roma; C. Shannon and S. Suomi NICHD, NIH Animal Center, P.O. Box 529, Poolesville, MD, 20837, USA

The experience of control over environmental outcomes during infancy is essential for development of mastery motivation, self-efficacy, and optimism. Peer-reared rhesus infants that controlled appetitive reinforcer delivery exhibited less emotional reactivity than infants provided identical reinforcers noncontingently. However, peer rearing produced potential inequities in access to operant manipulanda among group members, plus the inability to quantify manipulandum usage by individuals. We developed an apparatus to provide singly-housed, surrogate-peer reared infants with control or no control over treat delivery. This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the apparatus and to compare behavioral and physiological measures in infants reared with or without experiences of controllability. Eight infants were housed individually with inanimate surrogates, with peer socialization provided 2-3 hours daily. Apparatuses were placed behind the cages; each apparatus supported a ‘master’ animal (that controlled treat delivery, n = 4) and a ‘yoked’ animal (that received treats noncontingently, n = 4). Operant training commenced when infants were 16 weeks old. All master animals rapidly learned the operant responses, although individual differences in manipulanda use occurred. Yoked animals promptly consumed their treats. The apparatus provided appropriate experiences of controllability and uncontrollability for the master and yoked animals respectively. The groups did not differ on behaviors in the home cage or during socialization. Due to the success of the pilot study, these apparatuses will be implemented in future studies.



(6) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10832905

Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2000 May;24(5):644-50.

Rearing experiences and stress-induced plasma cortisol as early risk factors for excessive alcohol consumption in nonhuman primates.

Fahlke C, Lorenz JG, Long J, Champoux M, Suomi SJ, Higley JD.

Laboratory of Clinical Studies-Primate Unit, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. claudia.fahlke@psy.gu.se

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of early rearing and stress-induced rise of plasma cortisol collected during infancy as a biological predictors of adult alcohol consumption in nonhuman primates. METHODS: Ninety-seven female and male rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) were investigated. They were reared for their first 6 months of life either without mothers or other adults but with constant access to same-aged peers (peer-reared), or as controls with their mothers (mother-reared). When subjects reached 6 months of age, they underwent a series of four sequential weeks of 4-day social separations. Blood was drawn 1 and 2 hr after initiation of the 4-day separation periods, and the plasma was assayed for plasma cortisol concentrations. When the subjects were young adults (approximately 50 months of age), they were tested for voluntary intake of alcohol for 1 hr per day, 4 days a week, during a period of 5 to 7 weeks under normal living conditions. RESULTS: The social separation challenge increased infant plasma cortisol concentrations, with peer-reared subjects exhibiting higher stress-induced cortisol concentrations than mother-reared animals. Subjects that responded to the social separation challenge with high cortisol levels consumed significantly more alcohol per kilogram of body weight as adults than subjects with a low cortisol response to the separation challenge, regardless of rearing condition. In addition, male and peer-reared subjects consumed significantly more alcohol than female and mother-reared subjects, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that early rearing experiences, such as adult absence, and high plasma cortisol concentrations early in life after a social separation stressor, are useful psychobiological predictors of future high alcohol consumption among nonhuman primates.

PMID: 10832905 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


(7) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 06dea5c79a


Psychiatry Research, Volume 95, Issue 1, 24 July 2000, Pages 25-34
Mark L. Laudenslager and A. Susan Clarke

Antidepressant treatment during social challenge prior to 1 year of age affects immune and endocrine responses in adult macaques


Abstract
Antidepressants are widely used in treating depression and other behavioral problems in children and adolescents. Little is known about the long-term effects of these agents, particularly on physiological systems. The effects of previous antidepressant treatment during a social challenge in 9-month-old rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) on their adult immune and endocrine responses were studied. Prior to the social challenge, the monkeys were reared either by their mother or in a peer group. Monkeys were treated with either a serotonergic agonist (fluoxetine), a noradrenergic agonist (desipramine), or saline during social separation. Non-separated, saline-treated monkeys served as control monkeys. In order to evaluate immune effects of early antidepressant treatment, adult monkeys were immunized with a novel antigen, tetanus toxoid. Blood samples were collected prior to and at 4–5-day intervals for 28 days after immunization. Plasma total immunoglobulins (IgG and IgM), complement levels (C3 and C4), tetanus antibody titers, and cortisol were assessed. Antibody levels were lowest in monkeys treated with antidepressants regardless of specific drug treatment or early rearing condition. Drug-treated subjects had elevated plasma immunoglobulins and complement protein levels. Cortisol was also highest in drug-treated subjects. These results should be considered when prescribing commonly used antidepressants for treatment of childhood disorders.


(8) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10862943


Behavioural Brain Research, Volume 112, Issues 1-2, July 2000, Pages 127-134
Ian A. Paul, Justin A. English and Angelos Halaris


Sucrose and quinine intake by maternally-deprived and control rhesus monkeys.

Paul IA, English JA, Halaris A.

Department of Psychiatry, Division of Neurobiology and Behavior Research, Laboratory of Neurobehavioral Pharmacology and Immunology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39216-4505, USA. ipaul@psychiatry.umsmed.edS

Clinical depression is often characterized by a loss of interest or pleasure in formerly enjoyable activities. Analogs of anhedonia are established in rats, but the generality of this phenomenon to other species is unknown. Maternally-deprived rhesus macaques show a wide range of behavioral abnormalities that are reversed by chronic antidepressant treatment. We tested consumption by maternally deprived versus control macaques of sweetened (seven sucrose concentrations) or bitter water (four quinine concentrations) versus plain water to evaluate a non-human primate model of depression for signs of anhedonia. All monkeys consumed more sweetened than tap water, but maternally-deprived monkeys had a diminished preference for sweetened water than did controls. However, maternally deprived animals consumed more bitter water than did controls. Baseline fluid consumption did not differ. The data suggest that 'anhedonia' in animal models may be secondary to a generally attenuated responsiveness to stimuli, rather than a unitary reduction in responsiveness to the appetitive properties of stimuli. We conclude that maternally-deprived rhesus monkeys do not display gustatory signs of anhedonia, but rather of insensitivity to gustatory stimuli.

PMID: 10862943 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

As for the link http://www.mrmcmed.org/mom.html
on Critique of Maternal Deprivation Experiments on Primates: Experiments at The State University of New York Health Science Center, even it were correct that Leonard Rosenblum’s experiments on exposing monkeys to drug-maternal deprivation or a condition of “acute endogenous distress” cannot be an accurate model of childhood separation anxiety, human depression or human panic disorder, per DSM-IV criteria, it does not really prove that nonhuman primates are not a highly useful subject and tool in the study of such - as well as other human conditions like schizophrenia, aggression disorder, addiction disorder, Alzheimer’s , etc., and in testing pharmacological agents for treatment of neuro diseases, the article mentions.

I don’t really know about maternal deprivation, but I think that nonhuman primates and other animals have been useful in increasing our understanding of conditions like drug addiction, Alzheimers, and affects of psych drugs. Panic disorder and depression in humans may be complex, but I’m not sure that it is correct to say that it is wrong for Rosenblum to believe that AED sufficiently reflects characteristic of PD to qualify as an animal model for the human condition of PD. Maybe one does not need all or most of the identical causes and all identical symptoms in the animal to make it a valid model for the human condition. I'm guessing that it would depend what is being researched and tested. E.g., a pscyh drug to control a person's fear during a mental break that produces fear. Whatever the environmental and emotional causes of the person's fear, e.g., fear produces certain chemicals and neurotransmissions (I'm not sure how to describe it scientifically). One could still produce fear in a nonhuman animal in lab conditions, then study the stress hormone levels and other chemicals, and produce a drug to lower these and control the fear in the animal. One could use these findings to understand and control fear in humans and other animals, adjusting the dosage. Something like that.

In the link http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2768# : <begin quote>from an article by Steven Maier,[3] which examines the usefulness of learned helplessness in animals as a model of depression in humans … "It can be argued that there is not enough agreement about the characteristics, neurobiology, induction, and prevention/cure of depression to make such comparison meaningful. Indeed, it has been argued that depression itself would not meet a rigorous application of the above criteria (McKinney, 1974). That is, depression might be sufficiently heterogenous in behavioral characteristics, neurobiology, causation, and prevention, that a given collection of depressed individuals might not closely match another. It might seem that a consideration of subtypes would resolve the issue, but even subtypes are probably not unitary in nature. Even a subtype of depression is a clinically defined syndrome or collection of events, and there is no strong reason to believe that such a collection will have a single cause. There may be many "routes" to what is labelled as depression, and they may not reduce to a single type even on a conceptual level. It would thus appear unlikely that learned helplessness is a model of depression in any general sense. However, animal "models" seem useful precisely because they do not duplicate the full clinical phenomenon but can allow the study of a single "route" in isolation [emphasis added]." … Maier was in fact saying that although none of the available models of learned helplessness in animals duplicates exactly the condition(s) of depression in humans, the models are nevertheless useful for studying components of depression and how the condition(s) may develop. <end quote>

Also, differences are just as important as similarities. E.g., that AIDS is not prevalent in nonhuman primates as it is in humans does not make use of nonhuman primates unnecessary or invalid.

I don’t know that monkey researchers have disregarded or do disparage the significance of the clinical literature regarding human findings “as if only monkey data exist and only monkey data can illuminate on this clinical questions” [of human maternal deprivation, childhood psychological roots of panic disorder, adult pathological anxiety, etc]. Even the article says that “Major monkey researchers like Harlow, Suomi, Kraemer, and McKinney have all acknowledged the superiority of human maternal deprivation data” even though they may cling to the idea that human data must be confirmed by experimental animal data for it to be proven valid. I don’t know that human clinical studies, like those by Bowlby and Spitz, were sufficient as data for understanding mother-child relations in humans. I can’t be sure, but, it seems that monkey experiments and human clinical studies often need to be done side by side. E.g., we do epidemiological studies together with animal studies. Research does not say, I don’t think, that only monkey experiments can confirm the psychologically harmful effect of maternal deprivation on human infants and, later, adults. Each may have their limitations, but they seem complimentary to each other.

The article says that “A misguided tradition that dominates contemporary biomedical research holds that human data must be confirmed by experimental animal data” The article references a couple of very old papers by experimental psychologists critical of this approach “as being inherently invalid and methodologically unsound” (a 1968 and 1984 paper). The article’s author says, “…animal studies merely reprocess already known human psychological information into a “new” animal behavioral format in an attempt to lend greater scientific credibility to human data … … and unnecessarily transform ideas from one conceptual framework (human psychology) to another (animal behavior). I don’t know whether the human clinical findings by Bowlby, et al, were truly data or anecdotal observations. Maybe, monkey data “have not uncovered new facts about human behavior.” But, they have “verified principles that have already been formulated from previous human data.” That is important, too.


I had mentioned that some of Bowlby's early studies had been criticized because their methodology lacked controls and relied too much on correlational and retrospective data. Bowlby was about clinical observation, whereas Harlow was about experimental developmental research. The paper, When Strangers Meet: John Bowlby and Harry Harlow on Attachment Behavior, by van der Horst, LeRoy and van der Veer, it seems that theoretical perspective at the time was based on retrospective analysis of older subjects rather than on direct observation of infants and young children. In Loneliness in Infancy: Harry Harlow, John Bowlby and Issues of Separation, van der Horst and van der Veer write that: "Bowlby was a clinician by training and Harlow an experimentalist. … … Bowlby used Harlow’s surrogate work with rhesus monkeys as much needed empirical support for his emerging theory of attachment in which he explained the nature and function of the affectional bonds between children and their caregivers (Bowlby 1958, 1969/1982). In his turn, Harlow was influenced by Bowlby’s thinking and tried to model his rhesus work to support Bowlby’s new theoretical framework (e.g., Seay et al. 1962; Seay and Harlow 1965). …" and "He [Bowlby] valued empirical studies and emphasized the importance of objective observation of real-life experiences. However, he still lacked the theoretical apparatus to understand the causal mechanisms behind the phenomena he observed. Also, he knew of no experiments that manipulated the potentially relevant variables in the domain of attachment formation. It was in this situation that he chanced upon the emerging science of ethology and the experimental work of Harlow."

Again, "Bowlby’s interest in separation resulted in his now famous work for the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Maternal care and mental health (Bowlby 1951), in which he reviewed the existing literature on the subject of deprivation of maternal care. More importantly, his assignment set Bowlby on track to start looking for a new theoretical framework for the explanation of the nature of the mother–child relationship—a framework he eventually found in ethology (Van der Horst et al. 2007)—resulting in his attachment trilogy (Bowlby 1969/1982, 1973, 1980). Unfortunately, many of the findings Bowlby reported in his WHO monograph were based on practical experience or resulted from studies that were methodologically inadequate. Although he presented some retrospective evidence of the fact that deprivation had negative effects on the development of young children, there was no sound empirical evidence to support his claims. For that reason, Bowlby eventually turned to Harlow’s separation studies for an empirical validation of his ideas …" and concludes:

" Slowly but surely people—in hospitals, foundling homes, nurseries—were beginning to see the effects of separation and deprivation on young children. The evidence gathered in studies by Lowrey, Bakwin, Edelston, Goldfarb and Spitz on the effects of early hospitalization—both in Britain and the USA—led people to believe that the physical and emotional separation from a familiar environment was detrimental to the child’s well-being. Their views were supported by films such as those by Spitz and Robertson (for a full overview of films on children’s hospitalization and maternal deprivation, see Mason 1967). Unfortunately, because of the retrospective nature of the reported findings, there could only be speculation about the mechanisms underlying them. It was up to others to lead the way to a theoretical and experimental validation of the consequences of maternal deprivation—and this is where Bowlby and Harlow entered the stage. ****

In this introduction to the special issue on Harry Harlow, we have described how both Harlow and Bowlby found inspiration to follow up on the findings from early studies on deprivation by Bakwin, Goldfarb, and Spitz. Elsewhere we have made abundantly clear how Bowlby used viewpoints of the new emerging European approach to animal behavior, ethology, to build his ideas on the mother child bond. From the 1950s Bowlby was in close personal and scientific contact with leading ethologist such as Niko Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz, and especially Robert Hinde. Bowlby developed new explanatory hypotheses for what is now known as human attachment behavior and was able to reject dominant ideas prevailing in psychoanalysis and learning theory of the 1940s and 1950s (Van der Horst et al. 2007). In this special issue attention will be drawn to the empirical validation of the concept of ‘attachment’ and the ‘nature of love’ by Harlow. In all, by refuting classical drive reduction theories, the work of Harlow and Bowlby would have a huge impact on the field of child care and child development."

- - -

From http://www.americanscientist.org/booksh ... ting-harry :

“But his greatest contribution was his demonstration of the power of "mother love" and the necessity of contact comfort—and the devastation that ensues when an infant is untouched, unloved, neglected.

Was Harlow the first to demonstrate this need? No, both René Spitz and John Bowlby had, much earlier, shown how infants raised in orphanages sickened and failed to thrive if they were fed but never cuddled. Was experimenting with monkeys, by raising them in isolation with only wire or cloth "mothers" and causing them anguish that no observer could fail to see, essential to make the same point? Probably not. I feel about Harlow's studies as I did about Stanley Milgram's famous studies of obedience to authority, in which large numbers of people inflicted what they believed to be serious pain on another person because the experimenter told them to. Did we not have enough examples from history to confirm that, as C. P. Snow observed, "more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience . . . than in the name of rebellion"? What Harlow and Milgram were able to do, however, was to make the case for their findings dramatic, compelling and scientifically incontrovertible. Their evidence was based not on anecdote, however persuasive the story, but on solid, empirical, replicated data. As Blum shows, that's what it took to begin to undermine a scientific worldview in which the need for touch and cuddling—physical expressions of mother love—was ignored. …

… Blum has written an invaluable story for all students of psychological science, for she shows how science is really done and how its findings are used and often misused. Scientific discoveries are a result not only of a bloodless progression from hypothesis to experiment to refinements, but also of the investigator's personality and passions, … …

… A more general problem in the text is Blum's tendency to imply that the "bad old days" of narrow-minded, misguided psychological advice are past—such as advice based on the radical behaviorism of John Watson and his school. We understand, we say, so much more about the importance of bonding, contact, attachment! Yes, we do, but we are no less vulnerable to today's social pressures and cultural values, or to the misuse of science on behalf of vested interests—especially the many vested emotional, political and economic interests involved in contemporary child-rearing practices and notions of "correct" mothering. …”

Also, I've referenced these links before: http://www.springerlink.com/content/470 ... ltext.html and
http://www.springerlink.com/content/e64 ... ltext.html

It is interesting to read the overlapping yet quite different angles.

At least animal-friendly produced links to support his/her perceived notion that nonhuman primates are still being maternally deprived and socially isolated for lab psychology studies, as well lab-induced psychosis in monkeys to study stress levels.

E.g., in the link http://www.awionline.org/ht/d/ContentDe ... 3/pid/2518 Forcibly Breaking the Maternal Bond, by Cathy Liss. Liss lists quotes from published scientific journals of studies involving baby monkeys taken away from their mothers and reared singly for a while. Some are abstracts I from the American Society of Primatologists meeting, so I could not always tell from what scientific journal they come from. But, e.g., http://www.asp.org/asp2001/abstractDisp ... EventID=79 , this study is by Bastian, ML, Sponberg, AC, Suomi, SJ, Higley, JD (2003) on a study called Long-term effects of infant rearing on the acquisition of dominance rank in juvenile and adult rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), published in Developmental Psychobiology, 2003, 42(2):44-51.


Other studies included in Liss' article (per a-f's link) and which look like peer-reviewed studies and primary literature, include: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10832905 : Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2000 May;24(5):644-50. Rearing experiences and stress-induced plasma cortisol as early risk factors for excessive alcohol consumption in nonhuman primates. Fahlke C, Lorenz JG, Long J, Champoux M, Suomi SJ, Higley JD.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 06dea5c79a : Psychiatry Research, Volume 95, Issue 1, 24 July 2000, Pages 25-34. Mark L. Laudenslager and A. Susan Clarke. Antidepressant treatment during social challenge prior to 1 year of age affects immune and endocrine responses in adult macaques.

And http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10862943 : Behavioural Brain Research, Volume 112, Issues 1-2, July 2000, Pages 127-134. Ian A. Paul, Justin A. English and Angelos Halaris. Sucrose and quinine intake by maternally-deprived and control rhesus monkeys.

In addition, animal-friendly's link of http://www.mrmcmed.org/mom.html references Leonard Rosenblum. A list of his publications are at http://www.biomedexperts.com/Profile.bm ... _Rosenblum .

Apologies, it has been a while since I last visited the forum. I would like to point out that it was claimed Harlow type studies were still being done, and asked for references. I have not had time to check those provided but it is important that maternal deprivation does not not equal with "Harlow". A quick scan of the abstracts provided by Rees shows animals were not isolated (as Harlow's were) but peer- reared (ie, with other young monkeys) or with substitute peers (for instance, dogs); other deprivation studies looking at effects of early stress involve temporary separation only. So I for the moment stand by what I said earlier - there appears to be no good evidence for continuing Harlow protocols.

That is true. A-f did say "similar [to Harlow's] use of primates" are being used today, as well as induced-psychosis in monkeys to study, e.g., stress levels. Not sure if a-f meant just that maternal deprivation and social isolation studies are still being done, or that they are also being conducted and monkeys treated in the same way as Harlow's studies of the same.

I agree that the examples of maternal deprivation studies given in the abstracts are not at all like Harlow's studies. In the abstracts, infant monkeys have been taken from their mothers (maternally deprived) but they were peer-reared, surrogate-peer-reared, and in one abstract ( http://www.asp.org/asp2001/abstractDisp ... EventID=75 ) it looks like infant monkeys were housed individually with inanimate surrogates, but with peer socialization provided 2-3 hours a day. The http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10832905 study shows monkeys without their mothers or other adults for the first 6 months, but with access to same-age peers; then at 6 months of age they were subjected to 4-day social separations over 4 sequential weeks. In the other abstract on Sucrose and quinine intake by maternally-deprived and control rhesus monkeys, Paul IA, English JA, Halaris A., methods were not stated.

Rather than doing Harlow-type studies of long-term separations and isolations, reference needs only to be made to the previous research regarding maternal deprivation in infant monkeys to later social deficits. These monkeys are not being subjected to the kinds of conditions – physical, emotional and psychological – of deprivation and isolation that Harlow's monkeys experienced. Maternal separations and social isolations seem very limited and temporary as to make them, perhaps, not so detrimental to the animals. There are no long-term separations and no vertical pits of despair. Though, I assume one has to induce some level of psych and physiological abnormalities for these kinds of studies. Still, from reading the abstracts I didn't find them similar to Harlow's use of monkeys, though I understand that for some the fact that baby monkeys like rhesus (which cling dearly to their mothers, unlike some other species who can be more easily enticed to let go) are separated from mother and/or socially isolated for any length of time is unacceptable.

Now that the dust has settled, coversation ..... Current maternal deprivation studies are in no way as harsh as what Harlow subjected those primates to and I didn't mean to say they were. I used the word "similar" only to indicate that they were being carried out at all. "Similar" in that babies are separated from their mothers in order to study the results which I find unethical and cruel for both mothers and infants. (As some of you would have probably guessed by now). I would have thought that Harlow's studies were the studies to end all studies, a bit like WW1 was the war to end all wars, but apparantly this is not so .... in either case.

Will there ever be an end to it or will researchers keep coming up with new angles and new combinations to study? Are we ever going to reach some time and place when we can say we've studied the ill effects of maternal deprivation enough and we can leave those infants with their mothers? I find it incredibly irritating that these studies are being funded and carried out. How does it even make sense to study stress levels in an animal who is, by nature of its situation, most likely already stressed? These studies, IMO, are examples of superfluous research and they only serve to cast a darker shadow on the research industry. Cruel, callous and unnecessary - digging around for little bits of information and creating such unnecessary hardship for animals who should not even be in existence in the first place - in that, I do not believe they should have been bred for this kind of life. ... (the argument that they are bred for this work doesn't hold much water for me).

The research feild has, IMO, way too much power in both funding and license, to carry out experiments on animals that are - like these - superfluous. There is the force of momentum which comes from a history of experimenting on animals which has had consensus - and that history is getting longer by the day of course - and the momentum stronger. How many thousands and thousands of animals are now in research facilities? How many research facilities are there in any given country? How many breeding programs to keep the supplies up? No need to answer. The answer is A LOT! I am one amongst what I perceive to be a growing number, who believes there should be and could be far less funding, far fewer experiments (sharing of findings, less duplicate studies, etc) and some serious breaks applied here. Yes, I think it is necessary to reign it in and a good place to do that would be to end the use of chimps in research and get the remaining 1200-1500 who are still in US labs to sanctuaries asap.

a bump before lunch