Sad Simians (Depressed to Death)

We've all heard the cliche about dying from a broken heart. For some monkeys, it's not a cliche at all. It's the result of a lifetime of suffering in captivity - isolated from friends and family and surrounded by individuals who are enemies who cause fear, pain distress and suffering. Others don't appear to care one way or the other. Some of those individuals are other monkeys - and some of them are the humans involved in the experiments.


Citation:
Shively, C. A., Register, T. C., Friedman, D. P., Morgan,T. M., Thompson,J., and Lanier, T. (2005). Social stress-associated depression in adult female cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). Biol Psychol 69:67-84.

Summary of experiment:
Female monkeys were put into unnatural social groups intended to induce extreme depression in some animals. The social stress was devastating.

"Over the course of the experiment, 56% of the monkeys in the highest quartile of depression died (5/9), whereas there were only one (11%) or two (22%) deaths in each of the other quartiles. Thus, behavioral depression was associated with increased mortality..."

*Only one or two deaths*? In a setting where proper nutrition is supposedly provided, there are no predators or natural disasters, and veterinary care is readily available, what could the mortality rate be? Apparently there are some very serious risks for morbidity and mortality in this lab.


Institutional affiliations:
Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Funded by:
National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation