Infant BBA

Precision medicine depends on the characterization of individual factors to identify at-risk individuals and to implement personalized therapeutic protocols. To maximize translational impact, animal models of disease require the same consideration of individual differences. In the last two decades, the BioBehavioral Assessment (BBA) Program at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) has quantified biobehavioral organization in more than 5,400 infant rhesus monkeys. The BBA Program involves a highly standardized, 25-hour-long, protocol that includes cognition, social motivation, stress response and temperamental and personality dimensions translatable to humans. The BBA Program has contributed important discoveries that have advanced our understanding of the developmental roots of health and disease (e.g., asthma, autism, depression, diarrhea).