Verena Behringer

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Primatology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

phone: +49 341 3550 245
e-mail: verena_behringer[>>> Please replace the brackets with an AT sign <<<]eva.mpg.de

 

Research Interests

Part of my research focuses on C-Peptide measurement in the urine of bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans. C-Peptide can be used as a biomarker for variations in body mass and nutritional status. This small polypeptide is produced during insulin synthesis and reflects changes in energetic condition in apes.

My second research interest concentrates on stress measurement. In my PhD I validated a non-invasive method to measure stress, namely cortisol in ape saliva. Technical advances that make the assessment of biomarkers possible have increasingly enabled researchers to conduct non-invasive studies. However, for measuring correlates of stress, attention has mainly focused on the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In this context the measurement of free cortisol in saliva has proven a reliable method to assess the reactivity of the HPA axis, or stress response, in humans. Currently, I am trying to establish a new method to measure stress response via SNS using alpha amylase in apes’ saliva.