ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Social bonds do not mediate the relationship between early adversity and adult glucocorticoids in wild baboons.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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34 citing papers in PubMed, 63 citations in OpenAlex.
- Using insertable cardiac monitors to test determinants of heart rate and activity in captive baboons.Animal biotelemetry · 2026Article
- Early life adversity shapes adult behavior in a free-ranging primate.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The effects of early life rearing experiences and age on sociality in captive olive baboons (Papio anubis).Primates; journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Social instability is associated with an elevated stress response but not with a fitness cost across vertebrate studies.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Is Early Life Adversity Associated With Adult Stress in a Wild Rodent?Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Early prenatal but not postnatal glucocorticoid exposure is associated with enhanced HPA axis activity into adulthood in a wild primate.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Wild capuchin monkeys as a model system for investigating the social and ecological determinants of ageing.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Review
- DNA methylation signatures of early-life adversity are exposure-dependent in wild baboons.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Environmental, sex-specific and genetic determinants of infant social behaviour in a wild primate.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Differential effects of early life adversity on male and female rhesus macaque lifespan.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Early life drought predicts components of adult body size in wild female baboons.American journal of biological anthropology · 2023Article
- Advancing methods for the biodemography of aging within social contexts.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Natural Animal Populations as Model Systems for Understanding Early Life Adversity Effects on Aging.Integrative and comparative biology · 2023Article
- Social and early life determinants of survival from cradle to grave: A case study in wild baboons.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Re-wilding model organisms: Opportunities to test causal mechanisms in social determinants of health and aging.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Early life adversities and lifelong health outcomes: A review of the literature on large, social, long-lived nonhuman mammals.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- DNA methylation signatures of early life adversity are exposure-dependent in wild baboons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
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Abstract
In humans and other animals, harsh conditions in early life can have profound effects on adult physiology, including the stress response. This relationship may be mediated by a lack of supportive relationships in adulthood. That is, early life adversity may inhibit the formation of supportive social ties, and weak social support is itself often linked to dysregulated stress responses. Here, we use prospective, longitudinal data from wild baboons in Kenya to test the links between early adversity, adult social bonds, and adult fecal glucocorticoid hormone concentrations (a measure of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal [HPA] axis activation and the stress response). Using a causal inference framework, we found that experiencing one or more sources of early adversity led to a 9 to 14% increase in females' glucocorticoid concentrations across adulthood. However, these effects were not mediated by weak social bonds: The direct effects of early adversity on adult glucocorticoid concentrations were 11 times stronger than the effects mediated by social bonds. This pattern occurred, in part, because the effect of social bonds on glucocorticoids was weak compared to the powerful effects of early adversity on glucocorticoid levels in adulthood. Hence, in female baboons, weak social bonds in adulthood are not enough to explain the effects of early adversity on glucocorticoid concentrations. Together, our results support the well-established notions that early adversity and weak social bonds both predict poor adult health. However, the magnitudes of these two effects differ considerably, and they may act independently of one another.
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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.