From Marmosets to Menopause: A Primate Perspective

Agnès Lacreuse, a primatologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has long been intrigued with animal behavior, particularly how nonhuman primates are remarkably similar and dissimilar to humans. This curiosity drove her to study neurocognitive aging in marmosets, focusing on sex differences in cognitive function, menopause, and Alzheimer’s disease.

What made marmosets an ideal choice for your research?

I’ve worked with baboons, capuchins, and rhesus monkeys, but to study aging, I switched to marmosets. Marmosets have the shortest lifespan of all the anthropoids, living only 10–12 years, making it easier to conduct longitudinal studies on aging. By understanding how cognitive aging differs across species, we'll be in a better position to understand what's going on in humans.

         

What have you learned from aging marmosets?

Women comprise nearly two-thirds of the people living with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States, yet scientists don’t know why. A marmoset model, while not a miniature human, provides valuable insights through comparative studies. For instance, we observed that female marmosets experienced earlier and steeper cognitive decline in executive function than male marmosets.¹

How does menopause influence Alzheimer’s disease, and how do you study it?

Women have heard, “Who cares about hot flashes, insomnia, and cognitive fog?” But menopause is a critical transition state for them. Some women experience greater shrinkage of the brain, differences in brain metabolism, and increased amyloid beta deposition that indicates a potential trajectory toward Alzheimer’s disease pathology.

Studying menopause in humans is challenging, so we model it in marmosets to explore how hormones affect behavior, including sleep, cognition, and thermal regulation.² We assess cognitive function and use RNA-sequencing to examine gene expression differences between sexes in brain tissue. Although we don’t have complete answers yet, this research holds promise for advancing our understanding.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Lacreuse was nominated for this interview through The Scientist’s Peer Profile Program submissions.