What you just clicked on is a diagram of the different sections of the brain affected by long-term isolation.
The trouble with conducting pyschological and neurological research on an individual's seperation (either emotional or physical) from a social setting is that this state of being comes in multiple forms. What is the difference between discriptors like solitary, lonely, isolated, shy, agoraphobic, etc.? And how do they appear in the human brain annd psyche?
Quote from the essay, There is a party in my head and no one is invited: Resting-state electrocortical activity and solitude: "The discrepancy between different faces of solitude may be closely tied to the motivations for seeking it out." This relates to the approach-avoidance motivation theory. Essentially, the solitude someone is motivated to approach is tremendously different from the solitude someone is motivated to avoid. In the case of solitude-avoidance, when solitude is "non-self-determined (i.e., non-autonomous)," detrimental psychological and psychosomatic effects may be triggered.
Resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) is when people put a bunch of wires and elecatrodes around your scalp and monitor your brainwaves, which "reflects the synchronous activity of populations of cortical neurons." Approach-avoidance motivation can apparently be recorded with this method, mainly through different regions which light up in the frontal cortex area. The left side of this region, when flooded with alpha band power, roughly indicates approach-motivated traits. When the right side experiences the same effect, this roughly indicates avoidance-motivated traits. Beta band suppression measured in the motor cortex also roughly indicates an approach-motivated individual's physical response to stimuli. When studied through EEG, solitude (self-determined) was positively associated with avoidance-motivation. The results of this study was inconclusive because its difficult to distinctly pinpoint and track socially-defined concepts like "solitude" in the biological, chemical processes of the brain.
Solitude may also be a product of low-approach motivation for social activities. Essentially, those who don't have much motivation to seek out social activities (for whatever reason), are going to be interested in a solitary lifestyle.
In 1990, Reed Larson argued that solitude isn't defined by physical space, but by the "separation of communication and control." He argued that the anxiety of solitude was really the anxiety of being seperated from a truth collectively known by the rest of the group. Because "truth" is a powerful tool in any group's heirarchy, Larson also equivilated this seperation anxiety with the anxiety of losing power or being put under the power of others. When an individual fails to avoid this solitude (fails to gain truth and power), the effects are unpleasent. But when an individual embraces the idea of solitude as a pursuit of truth and power, then that anxiety is nullified.
There is quite a lot of literature about the positive effects (both physical and mental) of social interaction, which is regarded by many as a psychological need. There is also a lot of literature about the negative effects of excessive social interaction. Literature of the effects of solitude mirror this. It would seem that solitude and social interaction are both psychological needs for the human being, but it seems impossible to feel the positive effects of both simultainiously.
The Social Approach Motivation Scale (SAPM), is a scale that measures an individuals motivation to pursue friendship. University students and other young people tend to sit at the higher end of this scale. "Forming and maintining friendships" is regarded as a key developmental componant of maturity.
Self-determined solitude may also be a key developmental componant of maturity as a constructive force that allows for "self-reflection, identity formation, and creativity." Also a chance to practice autonamy. Once again, it would seem there's a need to maintain some sort of "healthy balance" between the two. But what does this balance actually look like? How can it be practiced? Can it ever be achieved?
As of now, there are two major unifying theories that explain how the human brain experiences what we'd call "consciousness." They are SOMA (the Self-Organizing metarepresentational account) and AST (Attention Schema Theory). They're both kinda hard to define, but SOMA essentially sums up consciousness as the synthesis and conceptualizing of the raw intake of stimulis. It's the "processing" part of "information-processing." As opposed to SOMA, AST defines consciousness as a attention schema that the brain constructs rather than a seperated party that processes raw data. Basically, the brain's constantly taking in raw data, but it can't physically process all of it all the time. But it couldn't function if it was constantly aware of its own shortcomings, so it sort of invents a simplified model (or schema) of this intake of data and pretends that this is the actual, complete intake. AST states that a person is never taking in 100% of what they're experiencing, but instead constantly reinventing a rough model of their experience, and this rough model is what we'd call "consciousness."
The AST and SOMA theories have different approaches to concepts such as solitude. Because SOMA is about information-processing as consciousness, then social activity would greatly effect consciousness because social interaction requires the individual to be in a near-constant state of processing. If your consciousness is better at processing, then it will effect how it approaches social interaction. AST, on the other hand, merely states that consciousness is the rough equivilant of the raw universe, and social interaction is merely a componant of that raw data that our brains remodel the same way it does everything else.
Quote from the essay, Brain-body interactions underlying the association of loneliness with mental and physical health: "Higher rates of loneliness are observed in patients suffering from chronic health conditions, mental health conditions, cardiovascular problems, and neurodivergent populations, including autistic individuals...It was reported that the negative impact of loneliness on mortality was consistent across 35 articles included in a systematic review, and this relationship was found across gender and age groups."
Chronically lonely individuals (or those who have experienced high-levels of non-autonomous solitude) may experience certain levels of depression, anxiety, psychotic disorders, cardiovascular conditions, chronic health conditions, and immunological/inflammatory conditions.
Negative health effects of lonliness appear to be based on "percieved lonliness." The raw data of the real world doesn't fully determine whether or not we'll feel lonely and whether or not that lonliness will hurt us.
Quote from philosopher Paul Tillich: "Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone. Solitude expresses the glory of being alone."
For individuals who are experiencing long periods of perceived lonliness, gray matter in the posterior superior temporal sulcus may decrease. This indicates poorer social perception. OR low levels of gray matter in that region may contribute to poorer social perception, which results in lonliness.
Some research have found that levels of dopaminergic neurons within the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) may flucate when individuals experience "loneliness." But this research is still in its preliminary stages.
It seems levels of loneliness are the highest among younger and older people, and relative to middle-aged adults. Kinda a depressing addendum to the "we're born lonely and we die lonely" Orson Welles idea. We're born lonely, we get less lonely, we recede back to lonliness, and then we die.
Some research have found that levels of dopaminergic neurons within the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) may flucate when individuals experience "loneliness." But this research is still in its preliminary stages.
It seems levels of loneliness are the highest among younger and older people, and relative to middle-aged adults. Kinda a depressing addendum to the "we're born lonely and we die lonely" Orson Welles idea. We're born lonely, we get less lonely, we recede back to lonliness, and then we die. Though it seems that younger people report the highest intensity of loneliness when combared to older people. So lonliness may be the most acute at the beginnning of our lives. Though nothing is certain.
Physical symptoms of percieved lonliness may include but aren't limited to: psychomotor slowing, a leaden feeling in the extremities, aches and pains, fatigue, reduced food and fluid intake, lowered ability to sleep, increased risk of diabetes, increased BMI, increased blood pressure, increased cholesterol levels, anhedonia (the physical inability to feel pleasure), and a lowered immune system. It's depressing to see how much our bodies will break down if we feel seperated from the group for long enough periods of time.
Preliminary research indicates that lonliness affects the same regions of the brain associated with depression, including the areas involved with reward-processing and motivational learning.
The relationship between peer acceptance and social inclusion, loneliness and social anxiety has been investigated in children and adolescents, with a recent meta-analysis revealing "positive longitudinal associations between loneliness and social anxiety."
A recent longitudinal study with over 1000 participants aged 18–87 measured loneliness over a period of six months and revealed that "early state loneliness predicted later state social anxiety, as well as paranoia and depression."
Another recent meta-analyses reported a "30% increased risk for stroke, myocardial infarction, and mortality in individuals reporting feeling lonelier."
Lonliness has also been reported as an impairment on our ability to regulate our emotions and remain in control of ourselves.
