White matter structures associated with loneliness in young adults

Abstract

Lonely individuals may exhibit dysfunction, particularly with respect to social empathy and self-efficacy. White matter (WM) structures related to loneliness have not yet been identified. We investigated the association between regional WM density (rWMD) using the UCLA Loneliness Scale in 776 healthy young students aged 18–27 years old. Loneliness scores were negatively correlated with rWMD in eight clusters: the bilateral inferior parietal lobule (IPL), right anterior insula (AI), posterior temporoparietal junction (pTPJ), left posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), and rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC). The bilateral IPL, right AI, left pSTS, pTPJ, and RLPFC were strongly associated with Empathy Quotient (EQ), whereas the bilateral IPL, right AI, left pTPJ, and dmPFC were associated with General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) score. The neural correlates of loneliness comprise widespread reduction in WMD in areas related to self- and social cognition as well as areas associated with empathy and self-efficacy.

Empty-nest-related psychological distress is associated with progression of brain white matter lesions and cognitive impairment in the elderly

“…Nakagawa and coworkers28 found that white matter structures relate to loneliness in young adults. Stern and colleagues33 reported that brain structure can be affected by social ties and results in more efficient use of cerebral networks.…”

“…UCLA-LS is a highly reliable and widely used questionnaire on social isolation loneliness28. It contains 20 items.…”

White Matter and Social Cognition

“…Benton tests, Philadelphia battery) (Gomez et al, 2015;Grossi et al, 2014;Thomas et al, 2008;Unger et al, 2016), and face memory tasks (e.g. Cambridge tests) (Gomez et al, 2015;Song et al, 2015;Unger et al, 2016); empathy was assessed by the "empathy quotient" (Chou et al, 2011;Herbet, Lafargue, Moritz-Gasser, Menjot de Champfleur, et al, 2015;Nakagawa et al, 2015;Takeuchi et al, 2013), the "interpersonal reactivity index" (Fujino et al, 2014;Parkinson & Wheatley, 2014), and the "trait emotional intelligence questionnaire" (empathy subsets) (Olszewski et al, 2017); mentalizing abilities were evaluated by "false belief" stories (Grosse Wiesmann et al, 2017), cartoon animations Scheibel et al, 2011), comic strip vignettes (Herbet et al, 2014;Kana et al, 2014), and the "reading the mind in the eyes" task (Anderson et al, 2015;Cabinio et al, 2015;Herbet et al, 2014;Mike et al, 2013;Yordanova et al, 2017). Such a wide variety of seemingly disparate disorders as well as diverse behavioral paradigms provide excellent opportunities for exploring the relationship between WM tracts and social functions.…”

“…For example, Chou et al, (2011) used TBSS to examine local WM correlates of empathy ability and found that empathy quotient scores are positively correlated with FA in regional WM near social brain regions, such as the IPL and STS (see also Nakagawa et al, 2015;Takeuchi et al, 2013). Another way to accurately identify and characterize U-shaped fiber systems is to use novel fiber clustering algorithms (Zhang et al, 2014) or a sophisticated ensemble tractography approach (Takemura, Caiafa, Wandell, & Pestilli, 2016).…”

The relationships between brain structural changes and perceived loneliness in older adults suffering from late‐life depression

“…Indeed, lonely persons showed weaker activation in the VS when viewing pictures of pleasant social events than when viewing pleasant social pictures of nonsocial objects . The regional white matter (WM) column in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus, the bilateral inferior parietal lobule, the right anterior insula, the posterior temporoparietal junction, the rostrolateral, and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex have been shown to be reduced in people with high levels of perceived loneliness . It is speculated that changes in the WM volume reported above may relate to impaired empathy and low self‐efficacy.…”