Loneliness as a modulator of intersubject neural alignment across social and nonsocial contexts
- 1Sungkyunkwan University
Abstract
Loneliness is associated with cognitive biases that diverge from normative patterns of understanding and may be reflected in altered neural responses to the world. Here, we examined how loneliness modulates neural synchrony across individuals during the processing of social and nonsocial information. Using high-resolution movie-watching fMRI data (n = 178) from the Human Connectome Project, we applied intersubject correlation analyses to identify context-dependent neural signature of loneliness. Lonely individuals primarily showed more idiosyncratic responses in regions within the default mode network, visual association cortex, and amygdala during social contexts, and in reward-related circuitry during nonsocial contexts. This suggests less stereotyped processing of social information and reward in lonely individuals. In contrast, lonely individuals exhibited greater neural synchrony in the nucleus accumbens during social contexts and in somatomotor regions during nonsocial contexts. This potentially reflects shared experiences of social craving and engagement with a socially irrelevant physical environment. These effects were robust against demographic similarities, kinship, depression, and objective levels of social connection. Together, these findings identify loneliness as a modulator of intersubject neural alignment, which may contribute to shaping how individuals process and interpret different aspects of the world.
Related
- Similarity in greater Chinese ideology is associated with intersubject neural similarity during viewing of a pro-China video
- Atherosclerosis Profiling Reveals BHLHE40 as a Candidate Modulator of VSMC
- Antiviral profile of hepatitis B virus capsid assembly modulator ALG-001075, the parent of pevifoscorvir sodium
- Flourishing in university students: cross-sectional associations with personal and social FoMO, loneliness, and belonging
- Combining Gene Therapy with Current Modulator Treatments for Cystic Fibrosis: A Promising Area of Research
BibTeX
@misc{jeong2026loneliness,
title = {{Loneliness as a modulator of intersubject neural alignment across social and nonsocial contexts}},
author = {B. Jeong and M. J. Kim},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.64898/2026.11.03.763905},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.03.763905v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Loneliness as a modulator of intersubject neural alignment across social and nonsocial contexts
AU - B. Jeong
AU - M. J. Kim
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.11.03.763905
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.03.763905v1
AB - Loneliness is associated with cognitive biases that diverge from normative patterns of understanding and may be reflected in altered neural responses to the world. Here, we examined how loneliness modulates neural synchrony across individuals during the processing of social and nonsocial information. Using high-resolution movie-watching fMRI data (n = 178) from the Human Connectome Project, we applied intersubject correlation analyses to identify context-dependent neural signature of loneliness. Lonely individuals primarily showed more idiosyncratic responses in regions within the default mode network, visual association cortex, and amygdala during social contexts, and in reward-related circuitry during nonsocial contexts. This suggests less stereotyped processing of social information and reward in lonely individuals. In contrast, lonely individuals exhibited greater neural synchrony in the nucleus accumbens during social contexts and in somatomotor regions during nonsocial contexts. This potentially reflects shared experiences of social craving and engagement with a socially irrelevant physical environment. These effects were robust against demographic similarities, kinship, depression, and objective levels of social connection. Together, these findings identify loneliness as a modulator of intersubject neural alignment, which may contribute to shaping how individuals process and interpret different aspects of the world.
ER -