隔離的孤獨感會引發(fā)大腦類似于饑餓的渴望

隔離的孤獨感會引發(fā)大腦類似于饑餓的渴望

People are starving for human contact.

人們渴望與人接觸。

As the US approaches nearly one month since the coronavirus pandemic prompted Americans to isolate themselves from family and friends outside the home, many have been chiefly concerned with boredom or newly upended routines. But those who live alone are suffering from an emotion far more insidious: loneliness. For some, the compulsory solitude has already become too overwhelming to bear.

自從冠狀病毒大流行，美國人與家人和朋友隔絕已經(jīng)接近一個月了，許多人主要關心的是無聊，或者是剛剛被打亂的日常生活。但那些獨自生活的人正遭受著一種更可怕的情感:孤獨。對一些人來說，這種強制的孤獨已經(jīng)讓他們無法承受。

A nationwide study reported this week that 53% of Americans said they had felt lonely or isolated within the past week, particularly those in the 18-to-29 and 30-to-49 age ranges — groups that may be more likely to be single and childless. While mental health plays a considerable role in how individuals cope with being alone, scientists have recently come to reveal that the hungry brain looks strikingly similar to the lonely one.

本周的一項全國性研究報告稱，53%的美國人表示他們在過去一周內(nèi)感到孤獨或被孤立，尤其是那些18- 29歲和30- 49歲的年齡段——這些年齡段的人更可能是單身和無子女的。盡管心理健康在人們應對孤獨的過程中扮演著相當重要的角色，但科學家最近發(fā)現(xiàn)，饑餓的大腦與孤獨的大腦驚人地相似。

A prescient new study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology being previewed in BioRxiv prior to peer review is the first to show that both loneliness and hunger trigger deep centers of the human brain eliciting feelings of desire and craving. They say their findings suggest that the need for social interaction is as primordial as the need to eat.

麻省理工學院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)的研究人員在同行評審之前在BioRxiv發(fā)表了一項具有先見之見的新研究，該研究首次表明，孤獨感和饑餓感都會觸發(fā)人類大腦的深層中樞，引發(fā)欲望和渴望。他們說，他們的研究結果表明，對社交的需求和對吃的需求一樣是原始的。

Neuroscientists Livia Tomova, Rebecca Saxe and their team say they had no idea how timely their research, which began more than three years ago, would be today — as COVID-19 forces people around the world to seek shelter and socially distance themselves for the near future. In fact, they hardly could imagine a world outside of prisons where the scenarios they tested would be played out in reality.

神經(jīng)科學家利維婭·托莫瓦、麗貝卡·薩克斯和他們的團隊說，他們不知道他們?nèi)甓嗲伴_始的研究在今天會有多及時——因為COVID-19迫使世界各地的人們在不久的將來尋求庇護和社交距離。事實上，他們很難想象在監(jiān)獄之外的世界里，他們所測試的場景會在現(xiàn)實中上演。

“I sometimes struggled to articulate what that would be like in the real world,” Saxe told Scientific American. “Why would that ever happen?”

薩克斯告訴《科學美國人》說:“我有時很難說清楚在現(xiàn)實世界中那會是什么樣子。”“為什么會這樣呢?”

By the time Saxe and her colleagues were writing the study, their worst-case scenario had become the new normal.

當薩克斯和她的同事們寫研究報告的時候，最壞的情況已經(jīng)變成了新的日常。

“What feels most significant about this paper is that it’s a way to step outside the experience we’re having and look on it through a different lens,” Saxe said.

薩克斯說:“這篇論文最重要的意義在于，它是一種超越我們現(xiàn)有經(jīng)驗的方式，并通過不同的視角來看待它。”

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), scientists compared brain responses in 40 healthy adult volunteers after 10-hour deprivation periods forcing either loneliness or hunger. The rules on food-deprivation day were simple: No eating or drinking anything but water.

科學家們使用功能性磁共振成像技術(fMRI)，比較了40名健康成年志愿者在被迫孤獨或饑餓10小時后的大腦反應。食物剝奪日的規(guī)則很簡單:除了水，不能吃或喝任何東西。

Evoking loneliness was less straightforward, as some people crave regular social interaction, while others are more comfortable with solitude. To create the most consistent feeling of loneliness, participants were confined to a stark room at a lab with no phones, computers or novels, as some might have been inclined to bond with the characters. From 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., they were allowed only puzzles and pre-approved nonfiction reading or writing.

喚起孤獨感則不那么直接，因為有些人渴望有規(guī)律的社交活動，而另一些人則更喜歡獨處。為了營造最一致的孤獨感，參與者被限制在實驗室的一間簡陋的房間里，沒有手機、電腦或小說，因為有些人可能傾向于與角色建立聯(lián)系。從早上9點到晚上7點。在美國，他們只能玩猜謎游戲和閱讀或寫作非小說類書籍。

Immediately following the sessions, the volunteers were subjected to brain scans, focusing on a midbrain region called the substantia nigra, as well as visual cues, such as images of food or hugging, meant to induce craving. An active substantia nigra indicates a strong wanting that is produced by a dopamine release.

實驗結束后，研究人員立即對志愿者進行了腦部掃描，掃描的重點是中腦的黑質區(qū)域，以及一些視覺線索，如食物或擁抱的圖像，這些都是用來引起渴望的?；钴S的黑質表明強烈的欲望是由多巴胺釋放產(chǎn)生的。

“We found that this brain area specifically responded to the cues after deprivation but only to cues of what they had been deprived of,” said Tomova — meaning that periods of solitude were not soothed by pictures of participants’ favorite snacks. The brain’s response correlated with the subjects’ self-reports of how lonely or hungry they felt, though their reported feelings of hunger were consistently stronger than feelings of loneliness.

托莫娃說:“我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，被剝奪食物后，大腦的這一區(qū)域會對暗示做出特定的反應，但只對那些被剝奪了的暗示做出反應。大腦的反應與受試者自我報告的孤獨感或饑餓感相關，盡管他們報告的饑餓感始終強于孤獨感。”

The scientists put their results through AI analysis to trace neural patterns between the two brain states, which told them “that there seems to be an underlying shared neural signature between the two states,” Tomova said. “Social contact is a very basic need.”

科學家們通過人工智能分析來追蹤這兩種大腦狀態(tài)之間的神經(jīng)模式，這告訴他們“這兩種狀態(tài)之間似乎有一個潛在的共同的神經(jīng)特征，”托莫娃說。“社交是一種非?；镜男枨蟆?rdquo;

Tomova and Saxe hope to continue their study, particularly to reveal how social media impacts loneliness — for better or worse.

托莫瓦和薩克斯希望繼續(xù)他們的研究，特別是揭示社交媒體是如何影響孤獨感的——無論好壞。