Infant inhibited temperament in primates predicts adult behavior, is heritable, and is associated with anxiety-relevant genetic variation.

ABSTRACT: An anxious or inhibited temperament (IT) early in life is a major risk factor for the later development of stress-related psychopathology. Starting in infancy, nonhuman primates, like humans, begin to reveal their temperament when exposed to novel situations. Here, in Study 1 we demonstrate this infant IT predicts adult behavior. Specifically, in over 600 monkeys, we found that individuals scored as inhibited during infancy were more likely to refuse treats offered by potentially-threatening human experimenters as adults. In Study 2, using a sample of over 4000 monkeys from a large multi-generational family pedigree, we demonstrate that infant IT is partially heritable. The data revealed infant IT to reflect a co-inherited substrate that manifests across multiple latent variables. Finally,

SUBMITTER: Fox AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8613309 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature