Social separation models

Question 1

What does neonatal separation involve?

Answer 1

Non-human primates either infants separated from their parents or juveniles isolated from their peer group

Question 2

Henn and Mckinney 1987

Answer 2

Separation response. initial protest characterised by agitation, sleeplessness and distress calls.
Followed by despair characterised by decrease in activity, decrease in appetite, decrease in play and social interaction and assumption of a hunched posture and ‘sad’ facial expression

Question 3

Robertson and Bowlby, 1952

Answer 3

Symptoms of protest and despair are strikingly similar to those of anaclitic depression in institutionalised children

Question 4

Why are there few pharmcological studies for neonatal separation?

Answer 4

Expense of using primates and size of experimental group in most studies being too small to provide reliable data

Question 5

Suomi et al., 1978

Answer 5

Chronic treatment with imipriamine and ECS have reversed some but not all of the effects of separation in monkeys

Question 6

Katz, 1981

Answer 6

Separation protest followed by despair present in other species:

• cats
• dogs
• rodents
• guinea pigs
• precocial birds

Question 7

Rupniak et al., 2000

Answer 7

Guinea pig pups when separated from mother

• antidepressants reduce vocalisation
• identified potential antidepressant acitivty of substance P and NK1 receptor antagonists

Question 8

Everitt and Keverine 1979

Answer 8

Primate separation models of particular importance but have produced little value due to ethical constraints and not being able to test adequately sized groups of subjects

Question 9

Berger and schuster 1982

Answer 9

Chronic (4-6 weeks) isolation of adult rats has been shown to cause a disruption of cooperative social behaviour

Question 10

Lewinshon 1974

Answer 10

Reminiscent of the poor social performance of depressed people

Question 11

Willner et al., 1989

Answer 11

Adult isolation reversed with chronic treatment with imipramine or fluoxetine