![]() ![]() The University of Massachusetts Amherst team behind the work says studying the tiny monkeys, which have 10-year-lifespans and experience cognitive decline in their old age, are essential to better understand Alzheimers in people. More recently, experiments on marmosets that included invasive surgeries have attracted controversy. McElligot pointed to a much-critiqued 2020 paper extolling the efficiency of foot snares to capture jaguars and cougars for scientific study in Brazil. McElligot and Root-Gutteridge argue the case was emblematic of a wider problem in animal research, in which questionable studies and papers continue to pass institutional reviews and are published in high impact journals. "It just ignored all of the literature that we already have on attachment theory," added Holly Root-Gutteridge, an animal behavior scientist at the University of Lincoln in Britain. Harlow's experiments on maternal deprivation in rhesus macaques were considered groundbreaking, but may have also helped catalyze the early animal liberation movement. He told AFP that Livingstone appears to have replicated research performed by Harry Harlow, a notorious American psychologist, from the mid-20th century. ![]() This controversy has notably provoked strong responses in the scientific community, particularly from animal behavior researchers and primatologists, said Alan McElligot of the City University of Hong Kong's Centre for Animal Health and a co-signer of the PNAS letter. Such work routinely attracts the ire of groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which opposes all forms of animal testing. Livingstone, in a separate statement, said: "I have joined the ranks of scientists targeted and demonized by opponents of animal research, who seek to abolish lifesaving research in all animals." Livingstone's observations "can help scientists understand maternal bonding in humans and can inform comforting interventions to help women cope with loss in the immediate aftermath of suffering a miscarriage or experiencing a still birth," said Harvard Medical School in a statement. Harvard and Livingstone, for their part, have strongly defended the research. Hobaiter told AFP she was awaiting a response from the journal before further comment, but expected news soon. "We cannot ask monkeys for consent, but we can stop using, publishing, and in this case actively promoting cruel methods that knowingly cause extreme distress," wrote Catherine Hobaiter, a primatologist at the University of St Andrews, who co-authored the retraction letter. ![]() The paper, "Triggers for mother love" was authored by neuroscientist Margaret Livingstone and appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS) in September to little fanfare or media coverage.īut once news of the study began spreading on social media, it provoked a firestorm of criticism and eventually a letter to PNAS signed by over 250 scientists calling for a retraction.Īnimal rights groups meanwhile recalled Livingstone's past work, that included temporarily suturing shut the eyelids of infant monkeys in order to study the impact on their cognition. ![]()
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