Intentional Strategic Changes in the National Institute on Aging's RCMAR Program: Broadening its Scope and Reach to Strengthen its Impact.

Since 1997, the Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) program, supported by the Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), has served as BSR's flagship mentoring program for early-career scientists from diverse backgrounds. The program has undergone significant changes over time, adapting to meet institutional and societal needs. This article highlights the motivations behind programmatic shifts in the fifth funding cycle (2018-2023) and the guiding principles for RCMAR VI (2023-present).

Workshop summary: National Institutes of Health (NIH) 2022 scientific workshop on gender and health.

In this manuscript, we summarize the goals, content, and impact of the Gender and Health: Impacts of Structural Sexism, Gender Norms, Relational Power Dynamics, and Gender Inequities workshop held by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) in collaboration with 10 NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices. Specifically, we outline the key points emerging from the workshop presentations, which are the focus of the collection of articles in this supplement. The overarching goals of the workshop were to convene NIH staff, the external scientific community, and the public to discuss methods, measurement, modifiable factors, interventions, and best practices in health research on gender as a social and cultural variable and to identify opportunities to advance research and foster collaborations on these key topics.

Personality structure and social style in macaques.

Why regularities in personality can be described with particular dimensions is a basic question in differential psychology. Nonhuman primates can also be characterized in terms of personality structure. Comparative approaches can help reveal phylogenetic constraints and social and ecological patterns associated with the presence or absence of specific personality dimensions.

Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) as living fossils of hominoid personality and subjective well-being.

Personality dimensions capturing individual differences in behavior, cognition, and affect have been described in several species, including humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans. However, comparisons between species are limited by the use of different questionnaires. We asked raters to assess free-ranging rhesus macaques at two time points on personality and subjective well-being questionnaires used earlier to rate chimpanzees and orangutans.

Color signal information content and the eye of the beholder: a case study in the rhesus macaque.

Animal coloration has provided many classical examples of both natural and sexual selection. Methods to study color signals range from human assessment to models of receiver vision, with objective measurements commonly involving spectrometry or digital photography. However, signal assessment by a receiver is not objective but linked to receiver perception.

Do females pay attention to secondary sexual coloration in vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops)?

Several primate species show sexual dichromatism with males displaying conspicuous coloration of the pelage or skin. Studies of scrotal coloration in male vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) suggest that it is an important intrasexual signal, with relatively dark, colourful males dominating paler males. To date, no studies have examined the influence of male colour on intersexual social interactions in vervet monkeys.

Bystanders affect the outcome of mother-infant interactions in rhesus macaques.

Animal communication involves the transfer of information between a sender and one or more receivers. However, such interactions do not happen in a social vacuum; third parties are typically present, who can potentially eavesdrop upon or intervene in the interaction. The importance of such bystanders in shaping the outcome of communicative interactions has been widely studied in humans, but has only recently received attention in other animal species.

Pregnancy coloration in macaques may act as a warning signal to reduce antagonism by conspecifics.

Instances of bright, hormonally induced coloration among females during gestation have been reported in a few reptile and primate genera. Gravid coloration in lizards has been linked to female aggression but the influence of color changes associated with pregnancy has not yet been experimentally pursued for primates. As a first step to determine whether the crimson to magenta hues common to pregnancy coloration in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) contains information, to which conspecifics of either sex attend, we evaluated whether male and female rhesus macaques discriminate between pregnant and non-pregnant female faces.

Sex differences in survival costs of reproduction in a promiscuous primate.

In sexually promiscuous mammals, female reproductive effort is mainly expressed through gestation, lactation, and maternal care, whereas male reproductive effort is mainly manifested as mating effort. In this study, we investigated whether reproduction has significant survival costs for a seasonally breeding, sexually promiscuous species, the rhesus macaque, and whether these costs occur at different times of the year for females and males, namely in the birth and the mating season, respectively. The study was conducted with the rhesus macaque population on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico.

Plasma cortisol responses to stress in lactating and nonlactating female rhesus macaques.

Lactating female rats without their pups exhibit lower HPA responsiveness to stress than nonlactating females. However, responsiveness to stress is similar when lactating females are tested with their pups and the stressor involves a potential threat to the offspring. This study constitutes the first comparison of stress responsiveness in lactating and nonlactating female nonhuman primates.

Effects of parity and age on female attraction to faces of infants and neonates in rhesus macaques.

This study investigated the effects of parity and age on female rhesus macaque attention toward infants, and assessed whether the faces of neonates are more attractive than those of older infants. Six nulliparous and six multiparous females were shown digitized images of neonates' and 5- to 6-month-old infants' faces. Attention and preferences for images were measured by gaze duration and other picture-directed behaviors, including lip smacking, approaches, and presentations.

An experimental examination of female responses to infant face coloration in rhesus macaques.

In many primates, infants possess distinctive coloration that changes as a function of age. This colour is thought to serve the purpose of eliciting caretaking behaviour from the mother as well as other conspecifics. The present study investigated the responses of adult female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) to pictures of infant faces in relation to infant age and facial coloration.

Selective attention toward female secondary sexual color in male rhesus macaques.

Pink-to-red anogenital and facial sexual skin occurs in females of many primate species. Since female sexual skin color varies with reproductive state, it has long been assumed that color acts to stimulate male sexual interest. Although there is supportive evidence for this as regards anogenital skin, it is unclear whether this is also the case for facial sexual skin.

Herpes B-virus seroreactivity in a colony of Macaca mulatta: data from the Sabana Seca Field Station, a new specific pathogen-free program.

The demand for B-virus-free animals for biomedical research is increasing, while at the same time the availability of such animals is decreasing. The establishment of Specific Pathogen-Free (SPF) breeding macaque colonies is a priority of the National Institutes of Health. Nevertheless, it is well known that seroreactivity to B-virus can be difficult to interpret, particularly as it can vary over time in a single animal.

Behavioral, adrenal, and sympathetic responses to long-term administration of an oral corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor antagonist in a primate stress paradigm.

CRH is a main regulator of the stress response. This neuropeptide and its specific receptors, CRHR-1 and CRHR-2, are disseminated throughout the central nervous system. There is a significant interspecies difference in the distribution of CRHR within the central nervous system.

Body composition, age and fertility among free-ranging female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).

The relationship of morphometric measures and birth status among 93 females on Cayo Santiago trapped during the 2001 and 2002 seasons was assessed. The proportion of females giving birth differed between the two seasons (0.58 vs.

Variation in reproductive outcomes for captive male rhesus macaques (macaca mulatta) differing in CSF 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid concentrations.

In rhesus macaque males, lower than average cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of the principle metabolite of serotonin, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), have been linked to impulsivity, involvement in escalated aggression, failure to elicit consort relationships, production of fewer sperm plugs, and a relatively early age of mortality. Given these potential fitness costs, we performed two studies aimed at elucidating the effects of CSF 5-HIAA on reproduction. Study 1 retrospectively evaluated over a four-year period, the relative reproductive outcome for pairs of adult male rhesus macaques (n = 15) who lived in social groups and who differed in concentrations of CSF 5-HIAA.

The finding of an inverse relationship between social dominance and feeding priority among pairs of unfamiliar adult male vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus).

Dominance is often presumed to confer priority of access to resources. This study evaluated the relationship between two assessments of dominance: (1) social dominance, based on agonistic interactions and (2) feeding priority among pairs of unfamiliar adult vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus) differing in scrotal colour, but matched for height, weight and testicular volume, during paired introduction experiments. Results of this investigation showed that neither size differences nor scrotal colour were predictive of feeding priority, and social dominance was inversely related to feeding priority.

Evolutionary underpinnings of excessive alcohol consumption.

Given our close phylogenetic relatedness, non-human primates, in principle, could serve as an ideal model for alcoholism. Indeed, many studies in both humans and rhesus macaques show relationships between excessive alcohol consumption, aggression and serotonergic function, as measured by concentrations of the principal metabolite of serotonin, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). An important behavioral predictor of excessive alcohol consumption in both humans and rhesus monkeys is the propensity toward impulsivity.

Relationship between platelet-activating factor concentration in rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) spermatozoa and sperm motility.

Platelet-activating factor (PAF) is a potent signaling phospholipid that has been implicated in a number of biological activities. PAF concentration in primate spermatozoa has a positive correlation with fertility. While PAF is present in rhesus spermatozoa, there are no relational reports on its concentration and the cell's motility.