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Home Page
Research
Emphasis Areas
Research Affiliates
Core Services
Behavioral Science Core
Brain Imaging Core
Cellular Morphology Core
Genetics Core
Infant Primate Research Laboratory Core
Instrument Development Laboratory Core
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Overview
The Infant Primate Research Laboratory (IPRL) is supported as a Core facility of both the CHDD and the Washington National Primate Research Center. For more than 30 years, the overall objective of this Core has been to provide a range of services, equipment, and supplies to Research Affiliates using nonhuman primates in research related to developmental disabilities. IPRL services have been valuable in facilitating research on the developmental consequences of premature birth, failure-to-thrive, neurological disorders such as epilepsy, treatments for perinatal asphyxia, and maternal/fetal exposure to environmental chemicals, drugs, and viruses. Since the macaque monkey is an excellent model for the development of the central nervous system, learning more about the causes of abnormal development in monkeys provides important insights into the mechanisms that underlie neurodevelopmental disabilities in human infants. To this end, we provide
- Highly trained staff available for consultation
- Maternity ward and 24-hour intensive care nursery
- Care for both normal and high-risk infants
- State-of-the-art environmental enrichment program and rearing
practices that ensure species-normal behavioral development
- Care and intervention ensuring low morbidity and mortality
- Behavioral test battery designed to measure cognitive, sensory,
social and physical development
- Normative database with wide ranging parameters on both prenatal
and postnatal development
- Standard Operating Procedures for all behavioral tests and
data processing
Location
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Faculty & Staff
 Thomas M. Burbacher, Ph.D.
Director |
Kimberly S. Grant, Ph.D.
Research
Supervisor |
Noelle Liberato
Research Scientist
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Gary Bartram
Facilities Manager/
Coordinator
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Britni Curtis
Research
Technologist I
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Clayton Ferrier
Research
Technologist III
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To Use Our Services
Investigators who are interested in using infant primates in their projects are invited to
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Services
Key Services
Consultation Services
|Housing and Care |Specialized
Equipment, Protocols, and Databases |
Standard Testing Battery
|Assistance and Training
Consultation
Services
Our consultation services assist investigators with appropriate research designs, methods, and data analysis techniques. We also provide scientific, management, and budgetary information to Research Affiliates as they develop new proposals. Consultation on appropriate experimental designs, methods and statistical approaches is provided to Research Affiliates who are unfamiliar with the unique characteristics of developmental research using nonhuman primates. Assistance is provided for developing appropriate budgets for new proposals. Estimates of animal costs and costs for equipment, supplies and personnel are provided to affiliates upon request. Sharing of personnel, supplies and equipment is typically arranged to reduce the cost of projects. These services provide affiliate investigators with the information that is necessary for developing strong research proposals and implementing projects in a timely and efficient manner.
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Housing
and Care
IPRL provides routine and specialized housing and care for animals around-the-clock. Cages, equipment, supplies and personnel are provided to affiliate investigators for the thorough and complete care of infants housed in the laboratory. Specialized housing (glass front cages) and equipment (digital cameras, infrared lighting and remote monitors) are available for pregnant females in order to detect any problems during pregnancy, labor and delivery. A new infrared closed-circuit monitoring system for observing pregnant females was recently developed. This system provides a secure Website for monitoring both the behaviors of the pregnant females and physiological signals from the dam and fetus. The system is capable of monitoring intrauterine pressure and maternal and fetal blood pressure and heart rate. The real-time data are presented on screen and a hard copy is available via a strip-chart recorder. The current system also has the capability of viewing and organizing data from previous days so investigators can analyze trends in data collected over days. The Web-based system allows for remote monitoring by staff in the laboratory and by investigators from their campus office, lab, or homes. Investigators and staff can discuss appropriate medical interventions to maintain pregnancies if problems occur or they can assess potential problems during labor and delivery. In addition to observations, routine prepartum examinations are performed on pregnant females to assess orientation of the fetus, fetal heart rate and maternal heart rate and weight. As the pregnancy nears term, a cervical exam is conducted to determine the degree of cervical effacement and dilation and assess other obstetrical problems such as placenta praevia and hemorrhage. Fetal loss has been significantly reduced through such monitoring.
Pregnant females housed at the IPRL participate in an extensive environmental enrichment program that includes fruits and vegetables, frozen treats and a variety of stimulating toys and puzzles. Pregnant dams are also treated to classical music in their animal quarters.
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Mr. Bartram attending to newborn infant in incubator. |
Twenty-four hour clinical care is utilized by virtually all affiliate research projects active in the laboratory. Incubators are available for newborn or sick infants to provide temperature and/or oxygen support. An experienced veterinary staff is available around the clock to provide clinical care (oxygen, x-rays, intravenous treatments, medications). Veterinarians, veterinary technicians and our trained nursery technicians provide coverage to ensure that the survival rate for infants in the lab continues to be high (over 95%). In addition to ensuring low morbidity and mortality, these services provide affiliate investigators with information regarding early maturational milestones. Aspects of development such as temperature regulation, sleep-wake cycles, attainment of self-feeding, formula intake, weight gain and responses to weaning and housing changes can be related to experimental treatments and are available to investigators as a result of the 24-hour clinical care services.
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Specialized
Equipment, Protocols, and Databases
The IPRL provides Research Affiliates with testing equipment and supplies for our Standard Testing Battery for assessing the physical, sensory, motor, social and cognitive development of nonhuman primates from birth through approximately 1 year of age. Many of the assessments are based on studies of human infants and have been successfully adapted for use with infant monkeys. Standard Operating Procedures are available for all behavioral measures used in the laboratory. A large normative database is available for many of the assessments. This database provides key information for pilot studies regarding normal variability in responses so that the appropriate number of animals can be estimated for individual experimental studies. The database has also been the source for publications regarding the natural growth and development of laboratory-reared macaques as well as the basis for recent efforts to quantify the contribution of genetic variance in a wide range of behavioral and health-related phenotypes.
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Standard
Testing Battery
- Newborn Health
- Neonatal Assessment Behavior Scale
- Intake and Physical Growth
- Weights and Temperament
| Infant monkey being weighed. |
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- Object Retrieval
- Object Permanence
| Infant demonstrating object permanence by retrieving fully hidden object. |
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- Visual Acuity
- Visual Recognition Memory
- Saliva Collection
- Motor milestones
- Social Behavior
| Social group of infant pigtailed macaques in the playroom |
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- Tests of Learning and Memory that Include:
- Black/White Discrimination
- Black/White Discrimination Reversal
- Hamilton Search
| Monkey working on the Hamilton Search test. |
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- Spatial Discrimination
- Spatial Discrimination Reversal
- Two-object Discrimination Learning Set
- Nonmatch-to-Sample
- Delayed Nonmatch-to-Sample
In addition, the following tests are available:
| Monkey solving a learning problem using a touch-sensitive computer screen. |
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- Visual Expectancy
- Eye Movement (Oculomotor Development)
- Visual Contrast Sensitivity
- Electroencephalography (EEG)
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- Positron Emission Tomography
| PET (positron emission tomography) scanner
for brain imaging. |
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- Foveal Development
- Evoked Potentials
- Simple and Complex Reaction Time
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Assistance and Training
Experienced laboratory personnel provide assistance, training, and on-site supervision to individuals conducting research in the laboratory and provide training for undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students. Since the physical resources in the laboratory are used by several affiliate investigators simultaneously, it is important that access to the resources be carefully scheduled and use of services closely supervised. In order to ensure that the needs of the investigators are being met, IPRL personnel develop and post a daily laboratory schedule to keep track of day to day research activity in the lab. The daily schedule lists the day’s research activities, the time, room location and the testers for each activity. Testers are required to sign-off on the schedule when testing is completed for the day. This system ensures that appropriate facilities and personnel are available for the different projects on a daily basis.
Research Affiliates who have projects with large numbers of animals typically provide technical staff for routine testing of animals from their grants. IPRL staff train these individuals and supervise their use of IPRL resources. In order to provide critical training in biosafety procedures and data collection to individuals conducting research in the lab, an IPRL technician is designated as the primary tester for each of our behavioral protocols. T he primary tester trains and runs reliability sessions with other testers assigned to projects. Reliability sessions are run every 6 months to guard against significant changes in data collection procedures. IPRL staff also provides training in data processing. Data processing procedures include weekly checks of completed data forms to detect errors and omissions, a two-step data editing procedure and frequent graphical summaries of the data.
Investigators who have approved pilot projects with small numbers of animals typically use IPRL staff for much of their testing in order to gather important data for grant submissions. Our IPRL research reserve program provides up to 30 infants per year to the laboratory to ensure that social partners are available for experimental animals. IPRL staff test these animals, as time permits, to provide updated normative data for our Standard Testing Battery. These animals serve as subjects for reliability testing and are used to help develop new laboratory procedures.
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Facilities
- Maternity room
- Newborn nurseries
- Housing and play rooms
- Veterinary treatment room
- Behavioral testing rooms
- Operant laboratory
- Pediatric AIDS laboratory
- Kitchens
- Cage washing facilities
- Offices for IPRL staff and students
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For further information see the IPRL web page.
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