Abstract
ObjectiveTo assess the influence of infant rearing on the behavior of depressed adult female Macaca fascicularis and the influence of depressed infant-rearing adult female Macaca fascicularis on their infants in a free enclosure environment.MethodsHere, 20 depressed subjects and then 20 healthy subjects were randomly selected from a total population of 1007 adult female Macaca fascicularis subjects. Four depressed subjects and eight healthy subjects were rearing infants. By focal observation, three trained observers video-recorded the selected subjects over a total observational period of 560 hours. The video footage was analyzed by qualified blinded analysts that coded the raw footage into quantitative behavioral data (i.e., durations of 53 pre-defined behavioral items across 12 behavioral categories) for statistical analysis.ResultsBetween infant-rearing and non-rearing healthy subjects, ten differential behaviors distributed across five behavioral categories were identified. Between infant-rearing and non-rearing depressed subjects, nine behaviors distributed across five behavioral categories were identified. Between infant-rearing healthy and infant-rearing depressed subjects, fifteen behaviors distributed across six behavioral categories were identified.ConclusionInfant-rearing depressed adult female Macaca fascicularis subjects may have a worse psychological status as compared to non-rearing depressed counterparts. Infant rearing may negatively influence depressed Macaca fascicularis mothers. Infant-rearing depressed subjects were less adequate at raising infants as compared to infant-rearing healthy subjects. Thus, maternal depression in this macaque species may negatively impact infatile development, which is consistent with previous findings in humans.
Highlights
Depression is a common psychiatric disorder across children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly
We found that infant rearing may exacerbate maternal depression
Significant Differences Between Groups In order to statistically distinguish the differential behaviors between infant-rearing and non-rearing healthy subjects and between infant-rearing and non-rearing depressed subjects, the Mann-Whitney U test was applied to rank sum the average daily durations of all 53 recorded behaviors in the aforementioned 12 behavioral categories
Summary
Depression is a common psychiatric disorder across children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. A full 10%–20% of women present with depressive symptoms [1,2]. It has been reported that approximately 20%–25% of women display heightened depressive symptoms during both pregnancy and the post-partum period [3]. Some studies held that the risk of depression after childbirth was higher than that at other times [8,9,10]. Some investigators reported that women after childbirth experienced higher levels of depressive symptomatology than did nonchildbearing women [10,11]. Some study reported that there was little to distinguish postpartum depression from non-postpartum depression beyond prevalence and symptom severity [4,12,13,14,15]. Maternal depression has been consistently associated with adverse effects on maternal– infant interactions and some measures of infant development [21]
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