The “zone of loneliness” has been identified in the brain, according to the results of a study published in the medical journal Cell. This harmful feeling triggers the activity of a cell cluster or “loneliness neurons”. Conclusions obtained on mice, which could give rise to a treatment.
Loneliness has already been pointed out as harmful to health by scientists. She would be responsible for a less efficient immune system, greater receptivity to pain and would increase heart and stroke risk people aged 45 to 65.
A similar effect in humans
Researchers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the United States accidentally discovered an area of the brain that “welcomes” loneliness. By studying the effects of a drug on the brain, in particular on dopaminergic neurons, the scientists looked at the area of the dorsal raphe nucleus. They observed that when the mice lived in groups, the neurons of the cellular dorsal nucleus were put to sleep. On the other hand, when the rodents were isolated, this cell cluster became hyper-active and made the guinea pigs even more sociable when they found their congeners. They also noticed that the rodents that played a social role in the group were more sensitive than the others to changes in the activity of these neurons, and were therefore more deeply affected by loneliness.
“When people are isolated for a long time and then reunited with those around them, they are very happy, there is a big increase in social interaction. We believe that this adaptation and this evolutionary trait is modeled here in mice, and that these neurons do play a role in this increase in sociability. Similarly, if a human being plays a dominant social role, he is likely to value and need his social environment more strongly. A person with a more “subordinate” social situation, and who has to struggle every day, already feels socially excluded,” concludes Gillian Matthews of the Department of Cognitive Sciences at MIT.
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