Bauman M D, Toscano J E, Mason W A, Lavenex P, Amaral D G
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Center for Neuroscience, California National Primate Research Center, Davis, CA, USA.
Behav Neurosci. 2006 Aug;120(4):749-60. doi: 10.1037/0735-7044.120.4.749.
As part of ongoing studies on the neurobiology of socioemotional behavior in the nonhuman primate, the authors examined the social dominance hierarchy of juvenile macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta) that received bilateral ibotenic acid lesions of the amygdala or the hippocampus or a sham surgical procedure at 2 weeks of age. The subjects were reared by their mothers with daily access to large social groups. Behavioral observations were conducted while monkeys were given access to a limited preferred food. This testing situation reliably elicited numerous species-typical dominance behaviors. All subjects were motivated to retrieve the food when tested individually. However, when a group of 6 monkeys was given access to only 1 container of the preferred food, the amygdala-lesioned monkeys had less frequent initial access to the food, had longer latencies to obtain the food, and demonstrated fewer species-typical aggressive behaviors. They were thus lower ranking on all indices of social dominance. The authors discuss these findings in relation to the role of the amygdala in the establishment of social rank and the regulation of aggression and fear.
作为对非人类灵长类动物社会情感行为神经生物学持续研究的一部分，作者研究了幼年猕猴（恒河猴）的社会等级制度，这些猕猴在2周龄时接受了双侧杏仁核或海马体的异搏定酸损伤或假手术。实验对象由它们的母亲抚养长大，每天都能接触到大型社会群体。在猴子获取有限的偏好食物时进行行为观察。这种测试情况可靠地引发了许多典型的物种优势行为。所有实验对象在单独测试时都有获取食物的动机。然而，当一组6只猴子只能获取1容器偏好食物时，杏仁核损伤的猴子最初获取食物的频率较低，获取食物的延迟时间更长，并且表现出的典型物种攻击行为较少。因此，它们在所有社会优势指标上的排名较低。作者讨论了这些发现与杏仁核在社会等级建立以及攻击和恐惧调节中的作用之间的关系。
