Pair-rearing infant monkeys (Macaca nemestrina) using a “rotating-peer” strategy

Abstract

Appropriate rearing conditions for captive primates are important for both research and breeding purposes. In an earlier study, pigtailed macaque infants that were pair‐reared with a single continuous partner exhibited excessive social clinging and could not adapt to living in large social groups at 8–10 months of age. In the present study, eight macaques were pair‐reared until they were 6 months old. Each member of an animal's four‐monkey social group served as a home‐cage partner. In an attempt to reduce excessive mutual clinging, the pairs were rotated every 2–3 days to increase the variability of social stimulation in the home cage. However, these infants developed abnormal social behaviors that were in some cases even more extreme than those exhibited by infants pair‐reared with a single continuous partner. A second goal of this experiment was to study interlaboratory reliability for the development of social behavior. The animals were divided into two groups, one housed in a nursery and the other in a biological safety level 3 virus laboratory. Some differences were detected between the two groups, demonstrating the necessity of controls in biobehavioral developmental research. Am. J. Primatol. 41:141–149, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

The amygdala and autism: implications from non‐human primate studies

“…There is reason to believe that this manipulation, which is standard animal husbandry procedure at many primate facilities, is sufficient to produce animals with profound social/emotional disturbances. There is evidence, for example, that pair rearing leads to socioemotional pathologies such as excessive clinging (Novak & Sackett 1997). Sackett and colleagues (2002) have recently demonstrated, in fact, that extraordinary measures are needed in order to partially mitigate the deleterious effects of nursery rearing.…”

High-order extensions of the Double Chain Markov Model

“…Only four behaviors were considered (Passive, Explore, Fear/Disturb, Play), the others like Sex and Aggression being not present or appearing only marginally in the data. More details about the procedure used to collect the data and traditional analysis can be found for instance in Worlein & Sackett (1997) and in Novak & Sackett (1997). It must be noted that since these data were obtained by observing and interpreting the behavior of young monkeys, they are subjective and can possibly include mistakes.…”

Defensive Vocalizations and Motor Asymmetry Triggered by Disinhibition of the Periaqueductal Gray in Non-human Primates

“…These animals were raised in the Infant Primate Research Laboratory at the University of Washington Regional Primate Research Facility, in a way similar to that described previously (Novak and Sackett, 1997). At ~6 months of age, the animals were transferred to Georgetown University where all experimental procedures were conducted.…”