It seems that the holiday season this year will be different and that everyone must remain isolated or alone due to the "Covid-19" pandemic.

It is not yet known how long the "Covid-19" crisis will last, and given the increasing reporting of loneliness during this pandemic, researchers are working to better understand how isolation affects our health.

A new study showed a kind of signature in the brains of lonely people that makes them distinct in basic ways, based on differences in the size of different brain regions as well as based on how these regions communicate with each other via brain networks.

A team of researchers examined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), genetics and psychological self-assessments of nearly 40,000 middle-aged and elderly adults who volunteered to have their information listed on the UK Biobank (an open database available to health scientists around the world. Then they compared the MRI data of the participants who often reported feeling lonely with those who did not.

The researchers found several differences in the brains of single people. These brain manifestations center on the so-called virtual network, which is a group of brain regions that share internal thoughts such as recalling memories, future planning, imagining and thinking about others.

The researchers also found that the virtual networks of lone people were closely related to each other, and surprisingly, the volume of gray matter in the areas of the virtual network was greater. Loneliness is also associated with differences in the cerebral vault, which is a bundle of nerve fibers that transmits signals from the hippocampus to the virtual network.

We use the virtual network when remembering the past, visualizing the future or thinking about the virtual present. The fact that the structure and function of this network is positively related to loneliness may be because lonely people are more likely to use imagination, flashbacks, or hopes for the future to overcome their social isolation.

"This increased focus on self-reflection, and possibly imagined social experiences, would naturally engage the memory-based functions of the virtual network," says Nathan Spring of The Neuro (Montreal Neuro Institute in Montreal) of McGill University, lead author of the study.

Loneliness is increasingly recognized as a major health problem, and previous studies have shown that elderly people with loneliness have a higher risk of developing cognitive decline and dementia. Understanding how loneliness appears in the brain could be key to preventing neurological diseases and developing better treatments.

Source: Science Daily

By:Nadeemy Haded