Researchers analyzed behavioral, ecological, and life history data collected from 192 wild female baboons in Kenya on a near-daily basis since 1994, as well as hormone metabolite data collected since 2000, and found that adversity experienced early in life elevated the baboons' glucocorticoid levels, a measure of stress responses, by up to 14% in adulthood; however, this effect was not mediated by poor social relationships in adulthood, suggesting that early experiences of adversity and social relationships in adulthood have independent effects on adult stress responses, according to the authors.
Article #20-04524: "Social bonds do not mediate the relationship between early adversity and adult glucocorticoids in wild baboons," by Stacy Rosenbaum et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Stacy Rosenbaum, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, MI; tel: 559-904-0139; email: rosenbas@umich.edu , stacylrosen@gmail.com
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences