Monkeys' Business

Just like people, monkeys behave in an infinite number of unpredictable ways. But essential health research relies on testing the impact of treatments for neuropsychiatric diseases like autism or depression on animals before giving them to vulnerable people. Therefore, establishing regular patterns of behaviour in both healthy animals and those which are genetically engineered to represent a model for particular conditions is essential to observe whether treatments can restore normal behaviour. A new study quantified the movement of a large dataset of marmosets in normal circumstances (start–0:17 in the video) and in response to stimuli such as food (0:17–end) or new cage mates. With behavioural biomarkers set, it will be possible to test treatments for efficacy in a range of animal models, to be sure of their safety and impact before bringing medicines to patients.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Video from work by William Menegas and Erin Corbett, and colleagues: adapted to double speed
• Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research, Yang Tan Collective, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
• Video provided by and copyright held by the original authors
• Published in eLife (reviewed preprint), December 2024