Background: Each year, millions of Americans experience mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Current research on the long-term effects of mTBI vary considerably. Several mechanisms linking mTBI to dementia have been proposed including amyloid plaque formation and cerebrovascular injury following mTBI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInterpreting animal behavior in the context of welfare can be inherently challenging given the limited behavior data available for many species housed in zoos. Describing common behavior patterns may help animal managers by providing additional background when assessing the individuals in their care. Although valuable, these efforts require a large, collaborative approach and have, consequently, been rare.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProviding evidence-based care to animals is a common goal in zoos and aquariums. However, there are many understudied species with a lack of information available, which may result in suboptimal care for individuals of these species. Using preference tests to ask individual animals what they want can be an effective means to enhance their care, and subsequently, their welfare.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZoos are often limited by exhibit design in the opportunities they can provide animals to express natural behaviors; however, the opportunity to perform certain natural behaviors is key to supporting good animal welfare. Traditionally, in zoos, naked mole rats (Heterocephalus glaber) are housed in gunite-lined acrylic chambers that replicate the look of their tunnel systems in the wild but don't offer the opportunity for natural digging and tunnel construction behaviors. In this study, naked mole rat behavior was evaluated when providing two different presentations of movable substrate added on to the original exhibit-a tank with loose substrate and a dig pit with hard-packed clay.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: More than half the long-term survivors of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation develop chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a debilitating inflammatory syndrome. Supportive interventions to assist survivors in coping with chronic GVHD are critically needed.
Patients And Methods: We conducted a pilot randomized clinical trial of a multidisciplinary group intervention (Horizons Program; n=39) versus minimally enhanced usual care (n=41) for patients with moderate or severe chronic GVHD.
Promoting human contact with wildlife can be harmful to animal conservation and welfare by exposing animals to unsafe situations and driving demand for wildlife tourism and exotic pets. Conservationists and researchers justifiably use social media to raise awareness, but professionals posting pictures of themselves with animals can have unintended negative consequences for conservation. Though the International Union for Conservation of Nature Best Practice Guidelines for Responsible Images of Non-Human Primates suggests researchers and animal professionals provide context in captions of images of humans interacting with primates, there is little research investigating whether this approach is effective.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ways in which humans can support good welfare for animals in their care is an ongoing subject of debate: some place emphasis on the animals' physical health; others, on animals' ability to live "natural lives"; and others on animals' affective states or psychological wellbeing. Recently, there has been an increase in interest in how an animal's ability to exercise control over its environment could impact their welfare. In this article, we take the stance that the relevant aspects of the first two concepts of animal welfare (physical health, natural lives) are largely addressed when an animal's psychological wellbeing is prioritized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Burkitt lymphoma is an aggressive B-cell lymphoma requiring intensive therapy, which places patients at risk for severe toxicity. However, few studies have described these patients' clinical outcomes and health care utilization, particularly among older adults.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of adults 40 years and older with Burkitt lymphoma at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute from February 1999 to December 2020 (N = 97).
With advances in therapies for hematologic cancers, older adults increasingly undergo hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Older adults may potentially experience an exaggerated burden of toxicity from HSCT. Studies examining the quality of life (QOL), physical functioning, and psychological symptom trajectory for older adults undergoing HSCT are limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDelirium, a common neuropsychiatric syndrome among hospitalized patients, has been associated with significant morbidity and mortality in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Although delirium is often reversible with prompt diagnosis and appropriate management, timely screening of hospitalized patients, including HSCT recipients at risk for delirium, is lacking. The association between delirium symptoms and healthcare utilization among HSCT recipients is also limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCaregivers of patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) must cope with substantial caregiving burden, high rates of psychological distress, and diminished quality of life (QOL). However, data describing coping strategies before HSCT and the association between coping, QOL, and psychological outcomes in this population are lacking. We conducted a secondary analysis of data collected during a multisite randomized clinical trial of a supportive care intervention in HSCT recipients and their caregivers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman relationships are structured in a set of layers, ordered from higher (intimate relationships) to lower (acquaintances) emotional and cognitive intensity. This structure arises from the limits of our cognitive capacity and the different amounts of resources required by different relationships. However, it is unknown whether nonhuman primate species organize their affiliative relationships following the same pattern.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn animal's welfare state is directly influenced by the mental state, which is shaped by experiences within the environment throughout the animal's life. For zoo-housed animals, visitors to the zoo are a large part of that environment and a fluctuating influence within it. This study examines the impact of zoo visitors on the space use of five species of zoo-housed primates (Eastern black-and-white colobus monkeys, Colobus guereza, n = 5, Allen's swamp monkeys, Allenopithecus nigroviridis, n = 2, DeBrazza's monkeys, Cercopithecus neglectus, n = 3, Bolivian gray titi monkeys, Callicebus donacophilus, n = 3, and crowned lemurs, Eulemur coronatus, n = 3).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe trade and private ownership of non-domesticated animals has detrimental effects on individual animals and their wild populations. Therefore, there is a need to understand the conditions that motivate and dissuade interest in non-domesticated pet ownership. Past research has demonstrated that the way in which non-domesticated animals are portrayed in images influences the public's perception that they are suitable as pets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is important to those managing Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) in captive settings to understand predictors of wounding. While studies have demonstrated that season (breeding or nonbreeding) and sex predict rates of wounding received by zoo-housed Japanese macaques, we investigated whether individual differences in personality ratings also might explain some of the observed interindividual variance in wounding. Such patterns were previously observed in rhesus macaques (M.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSocial tolerance is generally treated as a stable, species-specific characteristic. Recent research, however, has questioned this position and emphasized the importance of intraspecific variation. We investigate the temporal stability of social tolerance in four groups of sanctuary-housed chimpanzees over eight years using a commonly employed measure: experimental cofeeding tolerance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor many species in zoos, particularly megafauna vulnerable to heat stress, shade is a key environmental resource. However, shade availability has received comparatively less attention than other aspects of the zoo environment. In this study, we share a simple low-cost approach that we applied to document shade availability across 33 zoo enclosures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFolia Primatol (Basel)
October 2020
Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) display a number of cultural behaviours including food washing, stone handling and certain grooming techniques. These are deemed cultural behaviours because it is presumed that they are socially learned and, importantly, that social learning is essential for their emergence. Recently, however, research has revealed that culturally naïve primates can re-innovate presumed cultural behaviours.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJapanese macaque societies are characterized by frequent intragroup conflict both in free-ranging and zoo-housed conditions. In zoos, understanding the factors that contribute to wounding is of interest because this knowledge can aid in proactive husbandry and management planning that can minimize the negative impacts wounding can have on individual welfare. This study sought to determine whether the variables sex, season and age predicted wounding rates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnimal ambassador programs are increasingly prevalent in zoos, yet few studies have investigated their impact on animal welfare. We assessed the effects of an ambassador program on the behavior of a colony ( = 15) of zoo-housed African penguins () and evaluated whether individual characteristics were predictive of participation. Behavioral data were collected for 16 weeks and included 43 "penguin encounters", during which zoo visitors entered a designated portion of the penguins' enclosure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding intraspecific variation in sociality is essential for characterizing the flexibility and evolution of social systems, yet its study in nonhuman animals is rare. Here, we investigated whether chimpanzees exhibit population-level differences in sociality that cannot be easily explained by differences in genetics or ecology. We compared social proximity and grooming tendencies across four semiwild populations of chimpanzees living in the same ecological environment over three consecutive years, using both linear mixed models and social network analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere are two commonly-used methods for calculating primates' personality dimensions, behavioral assessments and surveys, which can be used separately or in conjunction. However, these methods have limitations. Behavioral assessments, such as the novel object test or human intruder test, often require subjects to be separated and demand highly-controlled conditions.
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