RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.03.25.006643
DO 10.1101/2020.03.25.006643
A1 Livia Tomova
A1 Kimberly L. Wang
A1 Todd Thompson
A1 Gillian A. Matthews
A1 Atsushi Takahashi
A1 Kay M. Tye
A1 Rebecca Saxe
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/17/2020.03.25.006643.abstract
AB When people are forced to be isolated from one another, do they crave social interactions? To address this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure neural responses evoked by food and social cues after participants (n=40) experienced ten hours of mandated fasting or total social isolation. After isolation, people felt lonely and craved social interaction. Midbrain regions showed selective activation to food cues after fasting and to social cues after isolation; these responses were correlated with self-reported craving. By contrast, striatal and cortical regions differentiated between craving food versus social interaction. Across deprivation sessions, we find that deprivation narrows and focuses the brain’s motivational responses to the deprived target. Our results support the intuitive idea that acute isolation causes social craving, similar to the way fasting causes hunger.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.