Department of Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
Gen Comp Endocrinol. 2011 Nov 1;174(2):150-5. doi: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2011.08.013. Epub 2011 Aug 26.
Hair has been shown to archive a uniquely time averaged signal of endocrine activity, and holds attractive advantages for both laboratory and field research. Prior research has explored the potential of hair hormone analysis to examine hormone-behavior relationships. To date, no research has focused on the potential of the technique to investigate age-related changes or taxon differences in endocrine function. It is known that non-human primate infants of many taxa exhibit high cortisol levels after parturition, which rapidly decline with age. It has also been shown that hypercortisolism generally characterizes platyrrhine (New World monkey) endocrine function. These endocrine trends have been characterized using cortisol levels determined from serum, plasma, and feces. Here we test whether cortisol levels determined from hair recover similar phylogenetic and age related patterns in endocrine function in non-human primates. In order to test whether hair cortisol reflect infant hypercortisolism with significant age-related decline, hair cortisol levels are measured in samples from wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) and captive Guinea baboons (Papio hamadryas papio), ranging in age from infants through juveniles. Further, in order to test whether platyrrhines exhibit significantly higher hair cortisol levels compared to strepsirrhines and catarrhines, and therefore faithfully recover similar signals as more traditionally used substrates (e.g. serum), hair cortisol levels are quantified in adult female hair samples collected from a broad range of non-human primate taxa. Results confirm that hair cortisol levels accurately reflect known phylogenetic and age related patterns of circulating cortisol levels. Therefore, these results suggest that hair may be an ideal hormone bearing substrate for research focused on the examination of population endocrine profiles, cross-sectional studies of endocrine function and taxon variation in hormone levels, as well as stable behavioral trends.
毛发已被证明可以长期稳定地记录内分泌活动的信号，并且在实验室和野外研究中都具有很大的吸引力。先前的研究已经探索了毛发激素分析在研究激素-行为关系方面的潜力。迄今为止，还没有研究关注该技术在调查与年龄相关的变化或分类群内分泌功能差异方面的潜力。众所周知，许多灵长类动物的非人类婴儿在分娩后会表现出高皮质醇水平，而皮质醇水平会随着年龄的增长而迅速下降。也有研究表明，高皮质醇血症通常是阔鼻猴（新世界猴）内分泌功能的特征。这些内分泌趋势已经使用从血清、血浆和粪便中确定的皮质醇水平进行了描述。在这里，我们测试了从毛发中确定的皮质醇水平是否能在非人类灵长类动物的内分泌功能中恢复类似的进化和年龄相关模式。为了测试毛发皮质醇是否能反映婴儿的皮质醇过多症和与年龄相关的显著下降，我们测量了野生绿猴（Chlorocebus aethiops）和圈养几内亚狒狒（Papio hamadryas papio）的样本中的毛发皮质醇水平，这些样本的年龄从婴儿到青少年不等。此外，为了测试阔鼻猴是否比栉趾猴和简鼻猴表现出更高的毛发皮质醇水平，并且因此能够忠实地恢复与更传统的使用基质（如血清）相似的信号，我们从广泛的非人类灵长类动物分类群中收集了成年雌性毛发样本，并对毛发皮质醇水平进行了量化。结果证实，毛发皮质醇水平准确地反映了已知的与进化和年龄相关的循环皮质醇水平模式。因此，这些结果表明，毛发可能是一种理想的激素载体基质，可用于研究群体内分泌谱、内分泌功能的横断面研究以及激素水平的分类群变化，以及稳定的行为趋势。
