Increases in loneliness during medical school are associated with increases in individuals' likelihood of mislabeling emotions as negative

Loneliness and brain rhythmic activity in resting state: an exploratory report

Recent studies using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging have shown that loneliness is associated with altered blood oxygenation in several brain regions. However, the relationship between loneliness and changes in neuronal rhythm activity in the brain remains unclear. To evaluate brain rhythm, we conducted an exploratory resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) study of loneliness. We recorded resting-state EEG signals from 139 participants (94 women; mean age = 19.96 years) and analyzed power spectrum density (PSD) and functional connectivity (FC) in both the electrode and source spaces. The PSD analysis revealed significant correlations between loneliness scores and decreased beta-band powers, which may indicate negative emotion, attention, reward, and/or sensorimotor processing. The FC analysis revealed a trend of alpha-band FC associated with individuals' loneliness scores. These findings provide new insights into the neural basis of loneliness, which will facilitate the development of neurobiologically informed interventions for loneliness.

Dissecting Loneliness in the Digital Age: An Insight into the Experiences of Medical Students Amid and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic

This narrative review explores loneliness among medical students, particularly heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This review aims to narratively describe how the digital age, both pre- and post-pandemic, influences loneliness and to assess the psychological effects of the pandemic on medical students. Our literature search, adhering to SANRA guidelines, scrutinized studies published in the last ten years focusing on loneliness among medical students. Our findings reveal that medical students experienced significant loneliness during the pandemic, attributed to virtual learning environments and decreased social interactions. Notably, the transition to online education has mitigated and exacerbated feelings of isolation. The review also highlights the dual role of social media in either alleviating or intensifying loneliness, depending on usage patterns and platform types. Overall, our study underscores the need for targeted interventions and support systems to address the mental well-being of medical students in the digital age and beyond, providing crucial insights for future research and policy-making in educational and psychological support frameworks.

Dissecting Loneliness in the Digital Age: An Insight into the Experiences of Medical Students Amid and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic

This narrative review explores loneliness among medical students, particularly heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This review aims to narratively describe how the digital age, both pre- and post-pandemic, influences loneliness and to assess the psychological effects of the pandemic on medical students. Our literature search, adhering to SANRA guidelines, scrutinized studies published in the last ten years focusing on loneliness among medical students. Our findings reveal that medical students experienced significant loneliness during the pandemic, attributed to virtual learning environments and decreased social interactions. Notably, the transition to online education has mitigated and exacerbated feelings of isolation. The review also highlights the dual role of social media in either alleviating or intensifying loneliness, depending on usage patterns and platform types. Overall, our study underscores the need for targeted interventions and support systems to address the mental well-being of medical students in the digital age and beyond, providing crucial insights for future research and policy-making in educational and psychological support frameworks.

Perceived control, loneliness, early-life stress, and parents' perceptions of stress

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of understanding what contributes to individual variability in experiences of stress. Increases in stress related to the pandemic have been especially pronounced in parents, indicating a need for research examining what factors contribute to parents' perceptions of stress. Here, we assessed the relationship between parents' perceptions of stress, control, loneliness, and experiences of childhood trauma in two populations of caregivers. In Study 1, we examined the relationship between perceptions of stress, control, loneliness, and history of early stress, along with indices of socioeconomic risk and resting parasympathetic nervous systema activity, which has been linked to variability in perceptions of stress, in caregivers of young children. Perceived control, loneliness, childhood stress, and resting parasympathetic nervous system activity predicted caregivers' stress. In Study 2, we replicated these initial findings in a second sample of caregivers. Additionally, we examined how these processes change over time. Caregivers demonstrated significant changes in perceptions of control, loneliness, and stress, and changes in control and childhood trauma history were associated with changes in perceptions of stress. Together these results indicate the importance of assessing how caregivers perceive their environment when examining what contributes to increased risk for stress. Additionally, they suggest that caregivers' stress-related processes are malleable and provide insight into potential targets for interventions aimed at reducing parents' stress.

Somatovisceral influences on emotional development

Frameworks of emotional development have tended to focus on how environmental factors shape children's emotion understanding. However, individual experiences of emotion represent a complex interplay between both external environmental inputs and internal somatovisceral signaling. Here, we discuss the importance of afferent signals and coordination between central and peripheral mechanisms in affective response processing. We propose that incorporating somatovisceral theories of emotions into frameworks of emotional development can inform how children understand emotions in themselves and others. We highlight promising directions for future research on emotional development incorporating this perspective, namely afferent cardiac processing and interoception, immune activation, physiological synchrony, and social touch.

Mothers need more information to recognise associated emotions in child facial expressions

Parenting requires mothers to read social cues and understand their children. It is particularly important that they recognise their child's emotions to react appropriately, for example, with compassion to sadness or compersion to happiness. Despite this importance, it is unclear how motherhood affects women's ability to recognise emotions associated with facial expressions in children. Using videos of an emotionally neutral face continually and gradually taking on a facial expression associated with an emotion, we quantified the amount of information needed to match the emotion with the facial expression. Mothers needed more information than non-mothers to match the emotions with the facial expressions. Both mothers and non-mothers performed equally on a control task identifying animals instead of emotions, and both groups needed less information when recognising the emotions associated with facial expressions in adolescents than pre-schoolers. These results indicate that mothers need more information for to correctly recognise typically associated emotions in child facial expressions but not for similar tasks not involving emotions. A possible explanation is that child facial expressions associated with emotions may have a greater emotional impact on mothers than non-mothers leading to task interference but possibly also to increased compassion and compersion.

Approach motivation and loneliness: Individual differences and parasympathetic activity

Loneliness, or perceived social isolation, is linked to a number of negative long‐term effects on both mental and physical health. However, how an individual responds to feeling lonely may influence their risk for later negative health outcomes. Here, we sought to clarify what influences variability in individuals' motivated responses to loneliness. Specifically, we assessed whether resting parasympathetic activity, a physiological marker linked to flexible adaptation, facilitates increased approach‐oriented behaviors. Seventy‐four adult participants underwent a conditioning paradigm assessing how they approach and avoid rewards and threats. Individuals with higher levels of loneliness and high resting parasympathetic activity were more likely to demonstrate approach behaviors. We discuss these findings in terms of the role resting parasympathetic activity may play in facilitating adaptive responses to feeling socially isolated.

How an individual responds to feeling lonely may influence their risk for later negative health outcomes. The current study provides new insight into what may influence variability in responses to feeling lonely. Individuals with higher resting parasympathetic activity and high levels of loneliness demonstrate increased approach‐oriented behaviors. This suggests loneliness increases approach motivations but only in the presence of other markers of adaptive responding, like high resting parasympathetic activity.

Affective Neuroscience of Loneliness: Potential Mechanisms underlying the Association between Perceived Social Isolation, Health, and Well-Being

Loneliness, or the subjective feeling of social isolation, is an important social determinant of health. Loneliness is associated with poor physical health, including higher rates of cardiovascular disease and dementia, faster cognitive decline, and increased risk of mortality, as well as disruptions in mental health, including higher levels of depression, anxiety, and negative affect. Theoretical accounts suggest loneliness is a complex cognitive and emotional state characterized by increased levels of inflammation and affective disruptions. This review examines affective neuroscience research on social isolation in animals and loneliness in humans to better understand the relationship between perceptions of social isolation and the brain. Loneliness associated increases in inflammation and neural changes consistent with increased sensitivity to social threat and disrupted emotion regulation suggest interventions targeting maladaptive social cognitions may be especially effective. Work in animal models suggests the neural changes associated with social isolation may be reversible. Therefore, ameliorating loneliness may be an actionable social determinant of health target. However, more research is needed to understand how loneliness impacts healthy aging, explore the role of inflammation as a potential mechanism in humans, and determine the best time to deliver interventions to improve physical health, mental health, and well-being across a diverse array of populations.

Early life stress and perceived social isolation influence how children use value information to guide behavior

Learning the value of environmental signals and using that information to guide behavior is critical for survival. Stress in childhood may influence these processes, but how it does so is still unclear. This study examined how stressful event exposures and perceived social isolation affect the ability to learn value signals and use that information in 72 children (8–9 years; 29 girls; 65.3% White). Stressful event exposures and perceived social isolation did not influence how children learned value information. But, children with high stressful event exposures and perceived social isolation were worse at using that information. These data suggest alterations in how value information is used, rather than learned, may be one mechanism linking early experiences to later behaviors.

Social relationships and children's perceptions of adversity

Having sensitive, contingent, and supportive social relationships has been linked to more positive outcomes after experiences of early childhood adversity. Traditionally, social relationships are construed as moderators that buffer children from the effects of exposure to adverse events. However, recent data support an alternative view: that supportive social relationships influence children's later outcomes by shaping their perceptions of safety and stress, regardless of the particular events to which children are exposed. This perspective has implications for understanding vulnerability and resilience in children.