Trial reportJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry2021
The Effects of At-Birth Adoption on Atypical Behavior and Anxiety: A Nonhuman Primate Model.
Trial report in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Early life stress and altered social behaviors: A perspective across species.Neuroscience research · 2025Review
- Behavioral adaptation in an adoptive free-ranging female Tibetan macaque.Primates; journal of primatology · 2023Article
- Article
- Evaluating depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in non-human primates.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Review
- Editorial: Macaque At-Birth Adoption: Its Power and Promise.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveAdopted children tend to show an increased risk for a variety of psychopathological outcomes, even when adoption occurs at birth, which some suggest is a result of nonrandom assignment of adoptees and parents. This study uses a nonhuman primate model, in which adoptions were randomly assigned, to investigate the behavioral and physiological outcomes associated with at-birth adoption.
methodImmediately following birth, rhesus monkey infants were randomly assigned to be reared by either their biological mother (n = 113) or by an unrelated, lactating, adoptive mother (n = 34). At 6 months of age, infant behavior and physiology were assessed during a stressful series of mother-infant separations. Four years later, stress-related behaviors were measured following confrontation by an unfamiliar intruder, an ecologically meaningful stressor.
resultsWhen compared to infants reared by their biological mothers, adopted infants exhibited more behavioral withdrawal and higher plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) concentrations in response to separation. These behavioral differences persisted 4 years later during a stressful intruder challenge, with adoptees exhibiting more behavioral withdrawal, stereotypies, and impulsive approaches of the potentially aggressive intruder.
conclusionCompared to infants reared by their biological mothers, adopted infants exhibited more behavioral inhibition, impulsivity, and higher ACTH concentrations, even when subjects were randomly assigned to be adopted or to remain with their biological mother. To the extent that these findings generalize to humans, they suggest that the overall risk for psychopathology in adopted individuals persists even after random assignment to adoption conditions.
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Registered trials
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