Loneliness and meaning in life are reflected in the intrinsic network architecture of the brain.

Laetitia Mwilambwe-Tshilobo,Richard M Leahy,Tian Ge,Bratislav Misic,Michael A Ferguson,R Nathan Spreng,Anthony L Burrow,Minqi Chong

doi:10.1093/scan/nsz021

Abstract

Social relationships imbue life with meaning, whereas loneliness diminishes one's sense of meaning in life. Yet the extent of interdependence between these psychological constructs remains poorly understood. We took a multivariate network approach to examine resting-state fMRI functional connectivity’s association with loneliness and meaning in a large cohort of adults (N = 942). Loneliness and meaning in life were negatively correlated with one another. In their relationship with individually parcelled whole-brain measures of functional connectivity, a significant and reliable pattern was observed. Greater loneliness was associated with dense, and less modular, connections between default, frontoparietal, attention and perceptual networks. A greater sense of life meaning was associated with increased, and more modular, connectivity between default and limbic networks. Low loneliness was associated with more modular brain connectivity, and lower life meaning was associated with higher between-network connectivity. These findings advance our understanding of loneliness and life meaning as distinct, yet interdependent, features of sociality. The results highlight a potential role of the default network as a central hub, providing a putative neural mechanism for shifting between feelings of isolation and purpose.

Highlights

Loneliness and life meaning are psychologically-bound constructs closely tied to sociality (Twenge et al, 2003; Stillman et al, 2009; Lambert et al, 2013)
The means and standard deviations for loneliness, meaning in life (MIL), personality traits, and positive affect by gender are displayed in Supplementary Table 1
Loneliness and meaning in life are important for guiding everyday behavior and sustaining mental health and well-being over the life course and into advanced age

Summary

Introduction

Loneliness and life meaning are psychologically-bound constructs closely tied to sociality (Twenge et al, 2003; Stillman et al, 2009; Lambert et al, 2013). Humans typically seek out social bonds and search for meaning and purpose throughout the life-course Both loneliness and a reduced sense of meaning are closely associated with declines in functional capacity (Perissinotto et al, 2012), dementia onset (Boyle et al, 2012; Holwerda et al, 2014), and mortality in later life (Boyle et al, 2009; Hill and Turiano, 2014; Holt-Lunstad et al, 2015). Loneliness arises due to deficiencies in the quality or quantity of social ties and the absence of social connectedness, in turn, diminishes MIL, suggesting that this relationship may be reinforcing (Baumeister and Leary, 1995) Are these constructs opposite sides of the same coin, or are they emergent from distinct mechanisms?

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