Individual Differences in Cerebral Perfusion as a Function of Age and Loneliness

ABSTRACT

Loneliness is defined as the subjective feeling that one’s social needs are not satisfied by both quantity and quality of one’s social relationships. Loneliness has been linked to a broad range of adverse physical and mental health consequences. There is an interest in identifying the neural and molecular processes by which loneliness adversely affects health. Prior imaging studies reported divergent networks involved in cognitive, emotional, and social processes associated with loneliness. Although loneliness is common among both younger and older adults, it is experienced differently across the lifespan and has different antecedents and consequences. The current study measured regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) using pulsed arterial spin labeling imaging. Forty-five older (M_age = 63.4) and forty-four younger adults (M_age = 20.9) with comparable degrees of loneliness were included. Whole-brain voxel-wise analysis revealed a main effect of age (in superior temporal and supramarginal gyri), but no main effect of loneliness. Furthermore, the age effect was only observed among people who reported higher level of loneliness. These regions have previously been implicated in social- and attention-related functions. The moderation of loneliness on age and regional CBF suggests that younger and older individuals present differential neural manifestations in response to loneliness, even with comparable levels of loneliness.

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the National Institute on Aging under Grant R01 AG094578-01 and the National Science Foundation under Grant BCS-0843346 to T.C.

Declaration of Interest statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Data Availability Statement

The un-thresholded statistical maps were uploaded to NeuroVault.org database and are available at http://neurovault.org/collections/8562/. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the senior author (T.C.) upon reasonable request.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging [R01 AG094578-01]; National Science Foundation (US) [BCS-0843346].