In people who feel lonely, the regions of the brain responsible for memories, imagination, inner thoughts and future projections are much more developed than in others. This would be a way for the brain to overcome and compensate for the isolation.
-1608127900.jpg "How does our brain work when faced with loneliness?")
- To overcome loneliness, the default mode network, a set of regions in our brain, activates more intensely.
- The Default Mode network governs memories, imagination, our inner thoughts, and our perception of the future.
- It is thanks to this mechanism, more developed in people who feel lonely, that our brain manages to overcome loneliness.
This year, Christmas will be a bit special. With the Covid-19 pandemic that we are going through, many people will not take the risk of contracting the disease and will find themselves alone for the holidays. With social distancing and the rules put in place by the government to avoid being more than six people around the same table, it is “normal” that 10% of French people choose to stay alone, according to an Ifop poll.
In a recent study published on December 15, 2020 in the journal type communications, researchers believe they have identified the “signature” in the brains of single people that makes them fundamentally distinct. Loneliness is thought to be due to volume variations in different regions of the brain as well as how they communicate with each other.
Loneliness, a feeling that can make you sick
Loneliness is a feeling, punctual or lasting, chosen or suffered, where a person finds himself or sets himself apart from others. According to the study, loneliness would affect between 10 and 20% of adults. This feeling, when suffered and long-lasting, promotes anxiety, depression, hypertension, obesity, drug taking, deteriorates mental health, causes dysfunctions of the immune system and increases the risk of suicide.
To figure it out, the researchers analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), genetic and psychological data from about 40,000 adults between the ages of 40 and 69. All participants volunteered to have their information included in the UK Biobank, an open-access database for scientists around the world.
Mental mechanisms to overcome loneliness
By comparing the MRI scans of participants who said they often felt lonely, the researchers found several differences in their brains. First, all of their brain activity was concentrated in the Default Mode Network, a set of regions active when a person is sleeping or not focused on the outside world. This region is the origin of inner thoughts, memories, imagination, reflection and planning for the future. In these people, the volume of gray matter is greater in the network of the default mode than in others and the nerve fibers of the fornix, the part that joins the hippocampus to the hypothalamus, are in a much better state than in others.
According to the researchers, if this region is so preserved in people who feel lonely, it is because they actively use their imagination, memory and hopes for the future to overcome their isolation.
“In the absence of desired social experiences, lonely people may be biased toward inward-directed thoughts, such as remembering or imagining social experiences. We know that these cognitive abilities are transmitted by the brain regions of the default networksays Nathan Spreng, researcher at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University (Canada). So this heightened focus on self-reflection, and eventually imagined social experiences, would naturally engage the memory-based functions of the default network.”
According to several studies, the part of the population that suffers the most from loneliness are the elderly, who are also at risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Through this study, researchers hope that new treatments can be developed to prevent the resulting neurological diseases.
-1608127900.jpg&description=How+does+our+brain+work+when+faced+with+loneliness%3F){kind=link}