# Affective neuroscience of loneliness: Impacts on health and wellbeing

> **NIH NIH F32** · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · 2022 · $69,922

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract. Loneliness is an all too familiar feeling for Americans, as an estimated 25-50% of
the US population report feeling socially isolated, and social distancing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
threaten to sharply increase loneliness. Related to but distinct from relationship quality and frequency of social
contact, loneliness is more than just an unpleasant subjective experience: it is associated with anxiety,
depression, inflammation, heart disease, and an increase in mortality comparable to smoking. Loneliness is
theorized to result in a specific biochemical cascade and affective disruptions (including increased sensitivity to
threat and disrupted emotion regulation) that are adaptive in the short-term when experiencing lack of social
contact, but maladaptive in the long-term. Because abnormal emotional responses can impair functioning and
increase vulnerability to psychopathology and stress-related disorders, it is crucial to understand the
psychological, affective, and neural processes that are linked with loneliness and associated negative health
and wellbeing outcomes. The proposed research utilizes existing multimodal affective neuroscience data linked
with biomarker of physical health and self-reports of wellbeing from the large, multi-project, publicly shared,
longitudinal Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study to determine: when loneliness disrupts affective neural
processing; what structural and functional neuroimaging differences are associated with loneliness; and how
these neural differences negatively impact health and wellbeing. Specifically, the proposed research aims to:
1) use electroencephalographic (EEG) measures of emotional responding to investigate when the neural
response to emotional stimuli differs with loneliness; 2) use multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to
understand what anatomical and functional differences in the brain are associated with loneliness; and 3)
investigate how loneliness related neural changes mediate known loneliness-associated negative health
outcomes cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The proposed 3-year research and training plan will take place
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, home to the MIDUS project and location where all neuroscience and
health data to be analyzed was collected, supervised by sponsor Dr. Stacey Schaefer, co-sponsor Dr. Richard
Davidson, and collaborator MRI biostatistician Dr. Jeanette Mumford, and includes detailed training in:
multimodal neuroimaging data; crucial affective neuroscience theories; advanced data analytics; key data
analysis software; additional skills needed to lead an independent research lab including grant-writing,
mentorship, and responsible conduct of research. Overall, the proposed fellowship will: expand the
neuroscientific understanding of loneliness; clarify the links between the brain and loneliness-associated health
outcomes; suggest novel avenues for intervention to reduce the impacts of loneliness...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10477009
- **Project number:** 5F32MH126537-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- **Principal Investigator:** Anna Jean Finley
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $69,922
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-08-15 → 2024-08-14

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10477009

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10477009, Affective neuroscience of loneliness: Impacts on health and wellbeing (5F32MH126537-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10477009. Licensed CC0.

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