Nature, Nurture and Nim: Trauma in Sentient Beings

Author Biography

Antonina Anna Scarnà, BSc. Hons, DPhil, PGCTHE, PGCert, CPsychol, is a psychologist and neuroscientist with expertise in language, personality and psychological disorders. Her work on the composition of the monolingual and bilingual lexicon explored the factors affecting object naming and reading. She conducted award-winning research into non-drug treatments for dopamine in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia at Oxford University UK, where she runs courses in Brain and Behaviour, Personality, and Psychological Disorders. Together with Robert Ingersoll, Anna published Primatology, Ethics and Trauma which evaluated the chimpanzee studies from the perspective of personality and trauma. Robert Ingersoll, BSc, MS, is a tireless champion of captive chimpanzees. He entered the world of primates as an undergraduate student at the University of Oklahoma's Institute for Primate Studies in the 1970s, where the research focus was on cognition, language, and inter-species communication between chimpanzees and humans, using American Sign Language. He quickly came to see the chimpanzees as friends rather than as research subjects. After several productive years, funding for the program was cut by the University, and the chimpanzee colony was sold to a medical research laboratory for invasive research. This led Robert to a crusade to free his chimpanzee friends that has lasted decades. Robert’s strong bond with Nim is explained in the 2011 award-winning documentary, Project Nim.