Abnormal Behavior and Health in Captive Apes
The frequency and breadth of abnormal behavior have been traditionally viewed as an accurate reflection of a captive individual's psychological state and overall welfare. One such abnormal behavior is hair plucking, which occurs in various taxa including many captive primates. Hypotheses about welfare may explain self-directed hair plucking, however, the etiology of social plucking is less clear. Between 2012 and 2019 I worked with Dr. Linda Marchant to characterize this behavior in captive bonobos and better understand it's etiology. Captive apes also curiously suffer from many non-infectious diseases that are associated with Western lifestyles in humans, chiefly cardiovascular disease. I recently collaborated with Dr. Ashley Edes to identify how well age, sex, and inflammatory biomarkers predict disease risk in captive gorillas.
Related Publications: Brand and Marchant 2015, Brand et al. 2016b, Brand and Marchant 2018, Brand and Marchant 2019, Edes and Brand 2021
Code for Gorilla Project: github.com/brandcm/Gorilla_Biomarkers
The frequency and breadth of abnormal behavior have been traditionally viewed as an accurate reflection of a captive individual's psychological state and overall welfare. One such abnormal behavior is hair plucking, which occurs in various taxa including many captive primates. Hypotheses about welfare may explain self-directed hair plucking, however, the etiology of social plucking is less clear. Between 2012 and 2019 I worked with Dr. Linda Marchant to characterize this behavior in captive bonobos and better understand it's etiology. Captive apes also curiously suffer from many non-infectious diseases that are associated with Western lifestyles in humans, chiefly cardiovascular disease. I recently collaborated with Dr. Ashley Edes to identify how well age, sex, and inflammatory biomarkers predict disease risk in captive gorillas.
Related Publications: Brand and Marchant 2015, Brand et al. 2016b, Brand and Marchant 2018, Brand and Marchant 2019, Edes and Brand 2021
Code for Gorilla Project: github.com/brandcm/Gorilla_Biomarkers
Collaborators