Isolation, social frustration, loneliness: they can affect our cognitive abilities and memory? Perhaps yes, but much remains to be investigated, explains a survey by the University of Barcelona published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. According to the team, some people who suffer from loneliness over a long period of time may experience a high rate of decline in their ability to cope. verbal memory, that is, the various forms of the memory of language. But all is not as it seems.
They are results of a study included in a larger group of investigations under the hat of the Lifebrain consortium led by the University of Oslo, Norway. In this research the participants were divided into three groupstwo from Sweden and Germany included older adults while a third were Danish teenagers for a total of 1,537 volunteers.
The research team measured i levels of loneliness of each person through a series of surveys on perceived social acceptance and belonging to a group. Respondents also revealed if they had anyone in their daily life to converse with truthfully. The researchers finally measured the episodic memory capacity using word recall tasks. Surprisingly, the long-term longitudinal data collected revealed that while feelings of loneliness showed a connection with memory decline among the Swedish participants, the German participants did not have the same memory problems.
On the other hand it is necessary to clarify well on what is meant by loneliness. Suffering from loneliness does not necessarily mean being and living alone. On the other hand, many know that one can feel isolated even if one lives in a family with little empathy or surrounded by other people who are not at all in tune with the needs and sensitivities of others. For the purposes of this research, the authors of the study defined loneliness as “a negative feeling associated with dissatisfaction with the quantity and quality of social connections” rather than as an objective and numerical evaluation of the composition of one’s core.
That’s why the cultural differences have some weight in this research: “Cultural differences in the way people perceive and cope with social isolation could partly explain the discrepancies found,” he says Cristina Solé-Padulléslead author of the study, in a press release. As if that were not enough, the connection identified between loneliness and the memory capacity of the Swedish volunteers is also disappearance when the authors excluded from the study all participants with dementia in the period considered. This specific aspect reinforces the already established link between loneliness and cognitive decline.
Much therefore remains to be verified on this complex territory. Brain scans, for example, did not yield any activation results between any brain region and loneliness, which contradicts previous studies that instead suggested that the “neurobiology” of isolation was associated with specific neural regions. deputies to the elaboration of emotional and empathic stimuli.
“Associations between loneliness and memory decline are inconsistent across countries and ages, in part because there are cultural differences that make some people more tolerant of social isolation – concludes Solé-Padullés – loneliness can cause memory decline in some elderly people, but memory decline can also cause an increase in feelings of loneliness ».
Loneliness, here are the consequences on health
Friendship, 7 tips to live it better
Source: Vanity Fair
