Induction of psychological death in rhesus monkeys

Abstract

An experimental study designed to induce psychological death in rhesus monkeys is presented and discussed. Four infant monkeys were raised with variable temperature surrogates. A 20-minute surrogate cold schedule was imposed 3 times per day, 5 days per week. All animals showed progressively increasing frequencies of disturbance behaviors. The introduction of a nightly 12-hour cold surrogate period at experimental week 9 rapidly produced a dramatic increase in disturbance frequency for all infants, and at the end of 2 weeks appeared to precipitate the death of one subject. A three-fold criterion of impending psychological death was established and successfully applied to the infants of a subsequent study. It is suggested that the case yields further presumptive evidence that imminent psychological death produced by social loss can be detected in time to take appropriate remedial action. Also, this animal model of extreme depression may determine the important variables underlying the disorder.