ABSTRACT
This chapter provides evidence that psychosocial factors influence the development of coronary artery atherosclerosis in a nonhuman primate model, the cynomolgus macaque. It reviews the development of macaque monkeys as a model for studying behavioral influences on coronary artery disease. The chapter attempts to elucidate the physiologic mechanisms by which psychosocial influences on coronary atherosclerosis are mediated, and to determine whether psychosocial factors also have an impact on clinically relevant aspects of cardiac structure and function. An alternative research strategy is the use of suitable animal models. The choice of an appropriate animal model depends not only on similarities to human beings in the morphologic and physiologic characteristics of atherosclerotic lesions, but also the presence of behavioral attributes analogous to those thought important in the pathogenesis of coronary heart disease (CHD) in human beings. Coronary heart disease is often the clinical manifestation of an underlying pathologic process, coronary artery atherosclerosis.
