I’m seeing how people enter to this cycle where traumatic experiences start someone to the path of loneliness and the debilitating effects of loneliness to the brain functions produces a feedback effect that may be the reason why people become more lonly/non-lonely later on in life. read the whole thing!
Researchers found that the ventral striatum—a region of the brain associated with rewards—is much more activated in non-lonely people than in the lonely when they view pictures of people in pleasant settings. In contrast, the temporoparietal junction—a region associated with taking the perspective of another person—is much less activated among lonely than in the non-lonely when viewing pictures of people in unpleasant settings.
“Given their feelings of social isolation, lonely individuals may be left to find relative comfort in nonsocial rewards,” said John Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Professor in Psychology at the University. He spoke at the briefing along with Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at the University.
The ventral striatum, which is critical to learning, is a key portion of the brain and is activated through primary rewards such as food and secondary rewards such as money. Social rewards and feelings of love also may activate the region.
Cacioppo, one of the nation’s leading scholars on loneliness, has shown that loneliness undermines health and can be as detrimental as smoking. About one in five Americans experience loneliness, he said. Decety is one of the nation’s leading researchers to use fMRI scans to explore empathy.
Loneliness Affects How The Brain Operates.