Abstract
Ample evidence indicates that loneliness in old age is associated with poor bodily and mental health. However, little is known about structural cerebral correlates of loneliness in healthy older adults. We examined such correlates in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) subsample of 319 older adults aged 61 to 82 years drawn from the Berlin Aging Study II. Using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and structural equation modeling (SEM), latent hierarchical regression analyses were performed to examine associations of (i) loneliness, (ii) a range of covariates, and (iii) loneliness by covariate interactions with latent brain volume estimates of brain structures known to be involved in processing, expressing, and regulating emotions. Results from whole-brain VBM analyses showed that individuals with higher loneliness scores tended to have smaller gray matter volumes in three clusters comprising (i) the left amygdala/anterior hippocampus, (ii) the left posterior parahippocampus and (iii) the left cerebellum. Significant associations and interactions between loneliness and latent factors for the amygdala and the hippocampus were confirmed with a region-of-interest (ROI)-based approach. These findings suggest that individual differences in loneliness among older adults are correlated with individual differences in the volumes of brain regions that are central to cognitive processing and emotional regulation, also after correcting for confounders such as social network size. We discuss possible mechanisms underlying these associations and their implications.
Highlights
With increasing life expectancy[1] older adults are more likely to be confronted with changes in their social network structure[2]
The first cluster extended from the left anterior amygdala, hippocampus, into parts of the left parahippocampal cortex, left posterior parahippocampal gyrus, and the left cerebellum after correcting for multiple comparisons and controlling for the selected covariates
A post-hoc voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyses we investigated possible associations between social network size and brain structure that revealed no significant cluster when taking into account the same covariates
Summary
With increasing life expectancy[1] older adults are more likely to be confronted with changes in their social network structure[2]. Www.nature.com/scientificreports loneliness are often accumulating in old age[4], one could expect that older adults have increasingly fewer opportunities to be socially embedded and integrated, thereby resulting in age-related increases of overall loneliness. When being confronted with an increasing number of losses in ones’ social network, older adults may focus on the most meaningful and important relationships and maintain their overall sense of social embeddedness. Other studies did not find associations between loneliness and age, especially when accounting for well-known correlates of loneliness and age (e.g., income[4,25]) These discrepant findings may be caused by study differences in the selection of the samples, its characteristics and size, or measurement and highlight the need for more fine-grained exploration of the antecedents and consequences of loneliness in old age
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