ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015
Social instability and immunity in rhesus monkeys: the role of the sympathetic nervous system.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 75 citations in OpenAlex.
- Socioecological complexity in primate groups and its cognitive correlates.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Pooled it
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- Comparative lifespan and healthspan of nonhuman primate species common to biomedical research.GeroScience · 2025Article
- Mean mares? Habitat features influence female aggression in response to social instability in the feral horse (Biology letters · 2025Article
- What can the psychoneuroimmunology of yoga teach us about depression's psychopathology?Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Article
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- Effect of Mindfulness Versus Loving-kindness Training on Leukocyte Gene Expression in Midlife Adults Raised in Low-Socioeconomic Status Households.Mindfulness · 2022Article
- Social housing status impacts rhesus monkeys' affective responding in classic threat processing tasks.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Behavioral and hormonal changes following social instability in young rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) · 2021Article
- Temperament Predicts the Quality of Social Interactions in Captive Female Rhesus Macaques (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Individualized Target Training Facilitated Transfer of Group Housed Capuchin MonkeysAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- To stress or not to stress: Brain-behavior-immune interaction may weaken or promote the immune response to SARS-CoV-2.Neurobiology of stress · 2021Article
- The impact of oxidative stress damage induced by the environmental stressors on COVID-19.Life sciences · 2021Review
- Article
- Isolation, social stress, low socioeconomic status and its relationship to immune response in Covid-19 pandemic context.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2020Review
- Two Distinct Immune Pathways Linking Social Relationships With Health: Inflammatory and Antiviral Processes.Psychosomatic medicine · 2019Article
- Coping style and cortisol levels in infancy predict hair cortisol following new group formation in captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).American journal of primatology · 2018Article
- Social context modulates digestive efficiency in greylag geese (Anser anser).Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Arginine vasopressin in cerebrospinal fluid is a marker of sociality in nonhuman primates.Science translational medicine · 2018Article
- Social regulation of the lymph node transcriptome in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Social instability can adversely affect endocrine, immune and health outcomes, and recent evidence suggests that the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) might mediate these effects. We conducted two studies with adult male rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) to understand how social conditions affect measures of SNS activity and immune function. In Experiment 1, animals were socialized in stable social conditions, then were switched to unstable (stressful) social conditions, then were returned to stable conditions. Analysis revealed quadratic effects for measures of behaviour, urinary metabolites of epinephrine and norepinephrine, and expression of immune response genes: as expected, social instability adversely impacted most measures, and the effects remediated upon re-imposition of stable conditions. Cortisol levels were unaffected. In Experiment 2, we used the sympathomimetic drug methamphetamine to challenge the SNS; animals also underwent socialization in stable or unstable groups. Surprisingly, while methamphetamine elevated plasma catecholamines, responses in lymph nodes tracked the social, and not the drug, condition: social instability upregulated the density of SNS fibres in lymph nodes and downregulated Type I interferon gene expression. Together, these results indicate that the SNS is extremely sensitive to social conditions; full understanding of the adverse effects of social instability on health should therefore incorporate measures of this health-relevant system.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.