1986 — 1988 |
Rosenblum, Leonard A |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Environmental Demand and Mother-Infant Relations @ Suny Downstate Medical Center
This proposal derives from several interrelated concepts, in particular, that primate social behavior, including that of man, has been strongly influenced by the nature of the foraging requirements of the environments within which they have evolved and currently function. Both in modern and more primitive societies, the parental unit seems especially sensitive to the competing demands created by various environments which may result in alterred maternal patterns and less capable offspring. One aspect of the environmental demand which has been viewed as crucial in influencing the capacity of subjects to cope effectively and thereby to reduce potential stress, is the stability or predictability of the demand and their capacity to exert some control over survival requirements. Similarly, it has been proposed that the nature of the predictability/control experiences (and hence the effectiveness of coping) early in life may influence subsequent capacity for coping with stressful life event, and leave individuals either relative sensitive to, or immunized against subsequent social and physical demands of the environment. We propose to determine the behavioral and neuroendocrine effects of stable high and low demand conditions in bonnet and pigtail macaques and to determine the effects of variable demands in bonnets in the presence or absence of cues designed to increase predictability and behavioral control. Adult behavior, cortisol, growth hormone and endorphin responses and patterns of maternal and infant response will be studied under each condition. In addition, in order to assess the effects of added experience with control over the physical environment, half the infants under each foraging demand condition will be offered opportunities to modulate their affective state and receive rewards through their actions on the environment throughout early life. In addition to observations of their development and coping skills while with mother, infants will also be assessed in terms of their response to subsequent loss, their capacity to cope with new learning problems, fear and frustration, and their ability to form new social relationships in adolescence.
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1988 — 1997 |
Rosenblum, Leonard A |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Experimental Studies of Susceptibility to Panic @ Suny Downstate Medical Center
Clinical data and experimental pharmacology has led to the recognition of Panic Disorder as a clinical entity distinct related general anxiety conditions and to the identification of its role in the generation of agoraphobia. It has been hypothesized that differences in response to specific classes of drugs and heightened susceptibility resulting from early separation experiences help define the disorder. One crucial dataset involves the reproducible provocation of discrete panic episodes in susceptible patients through the administration of sodium lactate. In extensive preliminary work using unrestrained subjects, we have found that in response to lactate (versus dextrose controls), nonhuman primates show varying degrees of behavioral response which mirror human reports; moreover, pilot data suggest broad individual differences in threshold of response to different concentrations of lactate. As in humans, initial studies indicate that imipramine blocks the panic/distress pattern. We propose a program involving systematic behavioral observations and parallel cardiovascular and biochemical measures in blood and CSF, to determine genetic (species), sex and individual differences in response to a range of lactate dosages; the impact of early separation experience on later susceptibility; the role of learning in developing agoraphobia-like avoidance patterns; and, the capacity of specific classes of drugs, (tricyclic antidepressants, MAO inhibitors, and benzodiazepines) in blocking the emergence of panic and subsequent blocking of learned panic-associated patterns. These data will help characterize the behavioral and physiological parameters of the panic/distress syndrome, will provide prospective data on hypothesized etiologic and learning effects on its manifestations, and offer insights into the pharmacological treatment of the disorder and its sequelae.
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1989 — 1992 |
Rosenblum, Leonard A |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. R24Activity Code Description: Undocumented code - click on the grant title for more information. |
Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of Caged Primates @ Suny Downstate Medical Center
animal welfare research; veterinary science; ethology; Primates;
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1990 — 1992 |
Rosenblum, Leonard A |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Environmental Demands and Mother-Infant Relations @ Suny Downstate Medical Center
Our previous work has shown that when primate mothers rear infants in environments which place difficult foraging demands on them, social behavior, maternal patterns and the course of infant development are each affected. When the total demand is sufficiently great, infants may show overt disturbance during rearing, while psychologically less difficult settings may result in infants whose vulnerability remains latent until challenged. Based on our recent work and relevant components of the human attachment literature, we suggest that these developmental disturbances arise as a result of decrements in the security of infant attachment with the concommittant diminution in the infant's emerging sense of control or mastery., We hypothesize that normally, mothers and their infants have a series of mechanisms which serve to reduce the potentially adverse effects of disruptions to control and security within the attachment complex. These buffering mechanisms include behaviors which emerge in preparation of disruption, those which may ameliorate the stress of maternal engagement and, in particular, those which serve to compensate for the disruption once it has concluded. The proposed research will focus on the developmental significance of these patterns when mothers are confronted with high foraging demands in the context of a new paradigm which places maternal foraging and infant contact in conflict and reduces infant control capacities. We will also assess the differences in developmental impact of separations as compared to periods of maternal psychological unavailability. Finally, we will evaluate experimentally the specific role of the compensatory (and related) mechanisms following a period of disruption in affecting control and security within the attachment complex. In all instances, in addition to assessing the ongoing effects of these regimens during the course of development, a comprehensive Outcome Profile will be used to determine the long term effects of these situations on cognitive affective and social development.
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1994 — 1996 |
Rosenblum, Leonard A |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
New Technologies For Enrichment and Cognitive Assessment @ Suny Downstate Medical Center
Nonhuman primate models are playing an expanded role in diverse biomedical research areas ranging from AIDS to aging. We must provide for the well- being of these animals, particularly when housed alone for research or health reasons, and ensure that their use in these paradigms is not confounded by extraneous stress or deprivation variables. It is also essential that assessment protocols, with demonstrated reliability in measuring relevant dependent variables, be available to ensure efficient research design and minimize numbers of research animals required. Computer-based joystick tasks can effectively contribute to meeting these goals. Having demonstrated the effectiveness of joystick tasks in maintaining high levels of focused activity, we now propose a) to investigate their effectiveness in ameliorating the response to a common laboratory stressor, the removal of a subject from its social group, thereby expanding use of the tasks in promoting well-being; and b) to establish baseline standards, for different age and sex categories, for a test battery providing continuous assessment of a broad range of cognitive and psychomotor abilities identified as affected in the AIDS Dementia Complex and other disorders. In our previous grant period, we developed several new technologies that expand the potential of the joystick paradigm. For research which precludes food rewards, and as a means of studying social perception, we have shown that monkeys will perform these tasks with live video of conspecifics as rewards. We now propose to determine a) specific parameters important in establishing and maintaining the long-term effectiveness of social-video reward; and b) the capacity of video exposure prior to full contact to increase affiliative and reduce aggressive content of initial social encounters. We also have developed an automated means for identifying individual performance within the group setting to avoid the need to remove an individual from its group for cognitive testing and to allow both enrichment and assessment of specific members within social groups. Using group-living animals, we now propose to assess individual performance on our assessment battery, as well as determine temporal and spatial patterns of joystick use, as a function of social variables. Hand preference in using the joystick will also be related to the nature of the specific task performed.
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1997 — 1998 |
Rosenblum, Leonard A |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Early Adversity and Thc/Methamphetamine Vulnerability @ Suny Downstate Medical Center
DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Abstract) Regardless of the social class of the abuser, or the nature of the drug being abused, the abuse of drugs is embedded within social and developmental contexts. Furthermore, the manifestations of drug abuse are rarely limited to a single domain of disturbance and may be different in males and females. Similarly, the effects of drugs are influenced by, and in turn can alter the functioning of a number of neurochemical systems. Early exposure to drugs seems likely therefore to change subsequent development and drug vulnerability and the biobehavioral sequelae of drugs use is critical to understanding both the causes and effects of drug abuse. We propose therefore to study in male and female juvenile and adult bonnet macaques, the effects of THC and Methamphetamine, two drugs of significant and increasing abuse. We will examine the impact of early rearing conditions with known adverse consequences for behavioral and neurodevelopment which have been implicated in the biobehavioral response to these drugs. We also propose to study the effects of acute/chronic juvenile drug exposure as it affects subsequent biobehavioral development and vulnerability to drugs. Finally we will examine the short and long term biobehavioral impact of the comorbidity of adverse early rearing and juvenile drug exposure. Building on individually based operant data and Ethopharmacological approaches, we will use a new EthoOperant approach developed in our laboratory, which allows parallel evaluation of a) individual performance on video operants varying in difficulty and reinforcement schedule; and b) social/affective patterns, in groups of bonnet macaques. Computer-readable chips imbedded in the subjects' wrists, allow computer recording of individual operant performance, while standard observations used in our laboratory for 35 years, provide detailed measures of relevant behavior patterns. Neurobiological data to be obtained with the Etho-Operant material will employ CSF taps to examine a spectrum of peptidergic and monoaminergic functioning throughout the course of development.
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