Papers by Tara Mandalaywala
Hormones and behavior, Jan 8, 2016
Early life adversity (ELA) affects physiological and behavioral development. One key component is... more Early life adversity (ELA) affects physiological and behavioral development. One key component is the relationship between the developing Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis and the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS). Recent studies suggest a relationship between early life adversity and asymmetry in cortisol (a measure of HPA activation) and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA: a correlate of SNS activation) responses to stress among human children, but to our knowledge there have been no comparable studies in nonhumans. Here, we investigate the responses of these two analytes in "low stress" and "high stress" situations in free-ranging juvenile rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico. Behavioral data on maternal maltreatment were collected during the first 3 months of life to determine individual rates of ELA, and saliva samples were collected from subjects noninvasively during juvenility. Irrespective of ELA, salivary alpha-amylase levels we...
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Handbook of Intelligence, 2014
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Psychological science, 2014
Both human and nonhuman primates exhibit a cognitive bias to social threat, but little is known a... more Both human and nonhuman primates exhibit a cognitive bias to social threat, but little is known about how this bias develops. We investigated the development of threat bias in free-ranging infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) at 3 months (n = 45) and 9 months (n = 46) of age. Three-month-olds did not display bias, but 9-month-olds exhibited increased maintenance of attention to threatening social stimuli. To examine whether the social environment affected this increased vigilance for threat, we collected behavioral data on maternal rank and protectiveness across the first 12 weeks of life for infants tested at 9 months. Among 9-month-olds, those of high-ranking and more protective mothers displayed greater vigilance for threat than those of lower-ranking and less protective mothers. These results demonstrate that infant social cognition is shaped by mothers both directly (via protectiveness) and indirectly (through social rank).
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Animal behaviour, 2014
Weaning, characterized by maternal reduction of resources, is both psychologically and energetica... more Weaning, characterized by maternal reduction of resources, is both psychologically and energetically stressful to mammalian offspring. Despite the importance of physiology in this process, previous studies have reported only indirect measures of weaning stress from infants, because of the difficulties of collecting physiological measures from free-ranging mammalian infants. Here we present some of the first data on the relationship between weaning and energetic and psychological stress in infant mammals. We collected data on 47 free-ranging rhesus macaque infants on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico, showing that faecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) concentrations were directly related to the frequency of maternal rejection, with fGCM concentrations increasing as rates of rejection increased. Infants with higher fGCM concentrations also engaged in higher rates of mother following, and mother following was associated with increased time on the nipple, suggesting that infants that experie...
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Behaviour, 2011
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Behavioral Neuroscience, 2011
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Animal Cognition, 2012
Numerous studies have demonstrated that animals' tolerance for risk when ... more Numerous studies have demonstrated that animals' tolerance for risk when foraging can be affected by changes in metabolic state. Specifically, animals on a negative energy budget increase their preferences for risk, while animals on a positive energy budget are typically risk-averse. The malleability of these preferences may be evolutionarily advantageous, and important for maximizing chances of survival during brief periods of energetic stress. However, animals adapted to living in unpredictable conditions are unlikely to benefit from risk-seeking strategies, and instead are expected to reduce energetic demands while maintaining risk-aversion. We measured risk preferences in lemurs, a group of primates restricted to the island of Madagascar. Lemurs have evolved diverse anatomical and behavioral traits for survival in a harsh and unpredictable ecology, and these traits have been explained as forms of anatomical and behavioral risk reduction. We therefore predicted that lemurs would also be risk-averse in a behavioral task that offered subjects a choice between a small certain reward, and an uncertain but potentially large reward. In Experiment 1, the average rewards associated with the constant and variable options were equal and lemurs exhibited high levels of risk-aversion, replicating a phenomenon that has been demonstrated in dozens of taxa. In Experiment 2, we gradually increased the average value of the variable option relative to the constant option. Lemurs' preferences tracked these changes and subjects became more risk-seeking as the risk premium increased. However, many subjects maintained high levels of risk-aversion even when the average payout of the variable option yielded double that of the constant option. These results are consistent with the notion that lemur cognition has evolved to minimize risk in an unpredictable island environment.
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Sex differences in longevity may reflect sex-specific costs of intra-sexual competition and repro... more Sex differences in longevity may reflect sex-specific costs of intra-sexual competition and reproductive effort. As male rhesus macaques experience greater intrasexual competition and die younger, we predicted that males would experience greater oxidative stress than females and that oxidative stress would reflect sex-specific measures of reproductive effort. Males, relative to females, had higher concentrations of 8-OHdG and malondialdehyde, which are markers of DNA oxidative damage and lipid peroxidation, respectively. Older macaques had lower 8-OHdG levels than younger ones, suggesting that oxidative stress decreases in parallel with known age-related declines in reproductive investment. Among males, a recent period of social instability affected oxidative status: males who attacked others at higher rates had higher 8-OHdG levels. Multiparous lactating females with daughters had higher 8-OHdG levels than those with sons. No differences in antioxidant capacity were found. These results lend initial support for the use of oxidative stress markers to assess trade-offs between reproductive effort and somatic maintenance in primates.
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Papers by Tara Mandalaywala