Description

Extensive research suggests loneliness is characterized by subjective isolation: many lonely individuals maintain a number of relationships but still report feeling lonely. Thus, a neurobiological account of loneliness requires that we understand how the brain represents our subjective connections to others and how loneliness alters these representations. The long-term goal of this proposal is to identify how subjective isolation is represented in the brain in order to identify novel ways to intervene on this representation to attenuate loneliness. We propose that the brain organizes our representations of people based on our subjective connection to them and that loneliness systematically alters this organization. In Specific Aim 1, we will determine whether subjective closeness organizes self and other representations in the brain. While undergoing fMRI, participants will complete tasks in which they reflect on themselves and other people. They will also report on their subjective closeness to the other people. We will test whether the brain organizes mental representations of the self and one's own social network members based on subjective closeness. In Specific Aim 2, we will determine how loneliness modulates self and other representations in the brain. In Specific, Exploratory Aim 3, we will determine the cognitive consequences of altered self and other representation in loneliness. Our proposal is imperative for ultimately revealing neurocognitive mechanisms to intervene on to reduce loneliness.