Open AccessSocial context, stress, and plasticity of aging
Author(s) -
Amdam Gro V.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
aging cell
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 140
eISSN - 1474-9726
pISSN - 1474-9718
DOI - 10.1111/j.1474-9726.2010.00647.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , social environment , biology , social stress , honey bee , senescence , life expectancy , longevity , healthy aging , psychology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , ecology , gerontology , genetics , sociology , population , medicine , paleontology , social science , demography
Summary Positive social contact is an important factor in healthy aging, but our understanding of how social interactions influence senescence is incomplete. As life expectancy continues to increase because of reduced death rates among elderly, the beneficial role of social relationships is emerging as a cross‐cutting theme in research on aging and healthspan. There is a need to improve knowledge on how behavior shapes, and is shaped by, the social environment, as well as needs to identify and study biological mechanisms that can translate differences in the social aspects of behavioral efforts, relationships, and stress reactivity (the general physiological and behavioral response‐pattern to harmful, dangerous or unpleasant situations) into variation in aging. Honey bees ( Apis mellifera ) provide a genetic model in sociobiology, behavioral neuroscience, and gerontology that is uniquely sensitive to social exchange. Different behavioral contact between these social insects can shorten or extend lifespan more than 10‐fold, and some aspects of their senescence are reversed by social cues that trigger aged individuals to express youthful repertoires of behavior. Here, I summarize how variation in social interactions contributes to this plasticity of aging and explain how beneficial and detrimental roles of social relationships can be traced from environmental and biological effects on honey bee physiology and behavior, to the expression of recovery‐related plasticity, stress reactivity, and survival during old age. This system provides intriguing opportunities for research on aging.