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Home alone: A population neuroscience investigation of brain morphology substrates

View ORCID ProfileMaryAnn Noonan, Chris Zajner, View ORCID ProfileDanilo Bzdok
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.06.459185
MaryAnn Noonan
1Department of Experimental Psychology, Anna Watts Building, Woodstock Rd, Oxford, United Kingdom
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  • For correspondence: maryann.noonan@psy.ox.ac.uk
Chris Zajner
2McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
3Department of Biomedical Engineering, Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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Danilo Bzdok
2McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
3Department of Biomedical Engineering, Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
4Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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Abstract

As a social species, ready exchange with peers is a pivotal asset - our “social capital”. Yet, single-person households have come to pervade metropolitan cities worldwide, with unknown consequences in the long run. Here, we systematically explore the morphological manifestations associated with singular living in ∼40,000 UK Biobank participants. The uncovered population-level signature spotlights the highly associative default mode network, in addition to findings such as in the amygdala central, cortical and corticoamygdaloid nuclei groups, as well as the hippocampal fimbria and dentate gyrus. Sex-stratified analyses revealed male-specific neural substrates, including somatomotor, saliency and visual systems, while female-specific neural substrates centred on the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. In line with our demographic profiling results, the discovered neural imprint of living alone is potentially linked to alcohol and tobacco consumption, anxiety, sleep quality as well as daily TV watching. The secular trend for solitary living will require new answers from public-health decision makers.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted September 07, 2021.
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Home alone: A population neuroscience investigation of brain morphology substrates
MaryAnn Noonan, Chris Zajner, Danilo Bzdok
bioRxiv 2021.09.06.459185; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.06.459185
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Home alone: A population neuroscience investigation of brain morphology substrates
MaryAnn Noonan, Chris Zajner, Danilo Bzdok
bioRxiv 2021.09.06.459185; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.06.459185

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