4 Topic Commentaries

Medical Oddities: Your physiology may know when you're alone

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  Steven W. Cole, PhD

  Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences; Director, Social Genomics Core Laboratory

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  David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

  We found the key antiviral response driven by so-called Type 1 interferon molecules was deeply suppressed in the lonely people relative to the non-lonely people.

  [Source]
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  Naomi I. Eisenberger, PhD

  Professor of Psychology; Director, Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory

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  University of California, Los Angeles

  We think this is why people talk about rejection as literally hurting — because the brain processes emotional and physical pain in similar ways.

  [Source]
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  Catherine Dulac, PhD

  Samuel W. Morris University Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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  Harvard University

  Our discovery of similar neural circuit architectures to encode social need and physiological needs such as the needs for water, food, and sleep directly illustrates how fundamental social interactions are for healthy lives.

  [Source]
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  John T. Cacioppo, PhD

  Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology

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  University of Chicago

  Much of what goes with loneliness—behaviorally, physiologically—is so deep that we’ve got it in our genes.

  [Source]