Risk, Resilience, and Gene-Environment Interplay in Primates

Differential early social rearing experiences of rhesus monkeys (e.g., mother- vs. peer-only-rearing) are associated with significant differences in social and emotional development, neuroendocrine function, neurotransmitter metabolism, brain structure and function, and genome-wide methylation patterns. Early rearing differences also interact with allelic variation in a number of "candidate" genes to influence patterns of behavioral and biological functioning throughout development.