Journal
ELIFE
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
eLIFE SCIENCES PUBL LTD
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.83660
Keywords
social isolation; neuroimaging; cognitive decline; hippocampus; cortical thickness; bayes; Human
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study used MRI to analyze the impact of social isolation on brain and cognitive aging. The results showed that social isolation was associated with smaller hippocampal volumes, reduced cortical thickness, and poorer cognitive functions. These findings suggest that promoting social networks can help reduce the risk of dementia.
Background: Social isolation has been suggested to increase the risk to develop cognitive decline. However, our knowledge on causality and neurobiological underpinnings is still limited. Methods: In this preregistered analysis, we tested the impact of social isolation on central features of brain and cognitive ageing using a longitudinal population-based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study. We assayed 1992 cognitively healthy participants (50-82years old, 921women) at baseline and 1409 participants after similar to 6y follow-up. Results: We found baseline social isolation and change in social isolation to be associated with smaller volumes of the hippocampus and clusters of reduced cortical thickness. Furthermore, poorer cognitive functions (memory, processing speed, executive functions) were linked to greater social isolation, too. Conclusions: Combining advanced neuroimaging outcomes with prevalent lifestyle characteristics from a well-characterized population of middle- to older aged adults, we provide evidence that social isolation contributes to human brain atrophy and cognitive decline. Within-subject effects of social isolation were similar to between-subject effects, indicating an opportunity to reduce dementia risk by promoting social networks.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available