Nurturing of skills in infancy positively impacts the brain of adult chimpanzees

What is it about?

We conducted an intervention with infant chimpanzees to nurture chimpanzees' social, motor, and communicative skills. Otherwise nursery-raised chimpanzees experienced some of the deleterious effects of institutional rearing. Many years later, when these chimpanzees were adults, we scanned their brains during their annual physical. We compared the brain scans of gray matter in these two groups to scans from chimpanzees raised by their own mothers. We found that characteristics of gray matter in the basal forebrain of the group who received the intervention was similar to brain characteristics of the mother-reared chimpanzees, and these brain characteristics were different in the nursery-reared group that did not receive the intervention.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Early experiences, in the first month of life, were significantly linked with structure and volume of gray matter in the basal forebrain, an area associated with reward. There are important behavioral, emotional, and cognitive correlates of the basal forebrain, involved in perceiving and interpreting rewards, that could impact the individuals' well being and their responses to social and nonsocial stimuli throughout life. This study with chimpanzees has important implications for the design and implementation of interventions for human infants who may experience institutional care.