Fig. 2: Experienced social isolation shows a brain signature implicating especially the higher-order association circuits. | Nature Human Behaviour

Fig. 2: Experienced social isolation shows a brain signature implicating especially the higher-order association circuits.

From: Social isolation and the brain in the pandemic era

Fig. 2

A Bayesian hierarchical model was applied to ~40,000 UK Biobank participants to distinguish lonely (target group, encoded as 1) from non-lonely participants (control group, encoded as 0), by quantifying the degree of structural differences in brain region volume measurements in 100 cortical regions (Schaefer–Yeo atlas; for the details, see ref. 37). Yellow and green show positive and negative volume associations, respectively, indicating (for example) bigger volume effects in yellow areas in lonely participants. CO, central operculum; ITG, inferior temporal gyrus; pSTS, posterior superior temporal sulcus; TPJ, temporoparietal junction; IPL, inferior parietal lobule; dACC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; dlPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; RSP, retrosplenial cortex; FG, fusiform gyrus; IVG, inferior visual gyrus; L/R, left/right hemisphere. Figure reproduced with permission from ref. 37.

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