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Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
When people are forced to be isolated from each other, do they crave social interactions? To address this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neural responses evoked by food and social cues after participants (n = 40) experienced 10 h of mandated fasting or total social isolation. After isolation, people felt lonely and craved social interaction. Midbrain regions showed selective activation to food cues after fasting and to social cues after isolation; these responses were correlated with self-reported craving. By contrast, striatal and cortical regions differentiated between craving food and craving social interaction. Across deprivation sessions, we found that deprivation narrows and focuses the brain’s motivational responses to the deprived target. Our results support the intuitive idea that acute isolation causes social craving, similar to the way fasting causes hunger. When people are isolated, they crave social interactions. Midbrain craving regions were activated by food in hungry people, and by social interactions in people mandated to be isolated.
Overview
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Written from the paper’s full text.
TL;DR
Acute 10-h social isolation in healthy young adults increased self-reported loneliness and social craving, and fMRI showed midbrain craving-related responses to social cues after isolation that resembled food-cue responses after fasting. The authors conclude that acute isolation evokes social craving via a shared midbrain motivational signal, with dissociable striatal/cortical responses for food versus social craving.
Key findings
- After 10 h isolation, participants reported increased social craving (t(39) = 5.00, P < 0.001), loneliness (t(39) = 5.17, P < 0.001), discomfort (t(39) = 5.57, P < 0.001), dislike of isolation (t(39) = 4.13, P < 0.001), and decreased happiness (t(39) = −4.21, P < 0.001); 36/40 felt more lonely. After 10 h fasting, food craving (t(36) = 17.40, P < 0.001), hunger (t(36) = 23.90, P < 0.001), discomfort (t(36) = 13.56, P < 0.001), dislike of fasting (t(36) = 6.28, P < 0.001) increased and happiness decreased (t(36) = −3.05, P = 0.004).
- In anatomically defined SN/VTA, food-cue responses were higher after fasting than isolation (b = 0.06, t = 3.1, P = 0.002), but social-cue responses were not significantly higher after isolation than fasting (b = 0.006, t = 0.7, P = 0.50). In a functional midbrain ROI, food cues were higher after fasting (b = 0.03, t = 3.3, P = 0.001) and social cues higher after isolation (b = 0.03, t = 2.5, P = 0.01).
- SN/VTA activity correlated with self-reported craving: after fasting, food-cue response correlated with Food_Craving_CIC (r(38) = 0.31, P = 0.025); after isolation, social-cue response correlated with Social_Craving_Q (r(38) = 0.36, P = 0.011). A classifier trained on food vs flowers after fasting generalized to social vs flowers after isolation (mean accuracy = 0.542, CI = (0.505, 0.581), P < 0.001), though social-cue classification accuracy did not differ between isolation and baseline.
- Striatal/cortical responses were dissociable: food cues evoked stronger responses after fasting in NAcc (b = 0.08, t = 4.7, P < 0.001) and putamen (b = 0.03, t = 3.2, P = 0.002); social cues evoked stronger responses after isolation in caudate (b = 0.04, t = 3.0, P = 0.003) and OFC (b = 0.11, t = 2.53, P = 0.012). Higher pre-existing chronic loneliness was associated with less social craving (r(38) = −0.37, P = 0.020) and muted SN/VTA response to social cues after isolation (r(38) = −0.33, P = 0.036).
Methods
- Within-subject design: n = 40 healthy right-handed adults (ages 18–40; 27 women) completed three fMRI sessions separated by at least 24 h: 10 h food fasting, 10 h social isolation, and baseline; the cue-induced craving (CIC) task used personalized food, social, and flower control cues; predictions and methods were preregistered on OSF.
- fMRI was optimized for SN/VTA; anatomical SN/VTA ROI came from a probabilistic atlas, and a functional midbrain ROI was defined from an independent reward/novelty localizer (top 100 voxels). Analyses included mixed-effects regressions, self-report correlations, multivoxel pattern classification, and representational similarity analysis.
- Sample characteristics: BMI mean 22.8 (s.d. 2.2); monthly social interactions mean 49.1 (31.7); close relationships mean 12.3 (5.1); UCLA loneliness mean 33.2 (6.3).
Limitations
- Stated: craving was measured by passive cue viewing and self-report, not direct motivation (e.g., willingness to expend effort or money); passive responses could reflect low-level visual attention; different craving measures correlated with SN/VTA for food versus social craving.
- Stated: small sample (n = 40) of healthy, well-connected young adults, mostly students, in one cultural context; did not measure baseline social behaviors or traits such as extroversion, depression, or anxiety; chronic loneliness disproportionately affects older and younger populations.
- Evident: chronic-loneliness findings are correlational and the authors note causality is unclear (could be a consequence rather than a cause of low SN/VTA responsiveness); unsmoothed MVPA showed no above-chance cross-decoding, and social-cue classification accuracy did not differ between isolation and baseline; whole-brain cluster correction is described by the authors as probably biased toward false positives.
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54 Own result · 18 Own method · 16 Not checked yet · 15 Own interpretation
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“after 10 h of food fasting, participants reported increased food craving (t(36) = 17.40, P < 0.001)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Subjective social craving can be evoked by acute objective social isolation.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“After 10 h of social isolation, participants reported substantially increased social craving (Student’s t-test, t(39) = 5.00, P < 0.001)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Subjective social craving can be evoked by acute objective social isolation.
plaindirectn = 40 ·- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“loneliness (t(39) = 5.17, P < 0.001)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Subjective social craving can be evoked by acute objective social isolation.
plaindirectn = 40 ·- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“People with higher pre-existing chronic loneliness also showed a muted response in SN/VTA to social cues after acute isolation (r(38) = −0.33; P = 0.036).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“participants with higher levels of chronic loneliness during the initial screening reported less craving for social contact in response to the social cues in the CIC task (Social_Craving_CIC: r(38) = −0.37; P = 0.020)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“responses to social cues did not significantly differ from responses at baseline for any of the sessions.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Food cues (compared with flowers) evoked a stronger response after fasting (compared with after isolation) in NAcc (b = 0.08, t = 4.7, 95% CI = (0.05, 0.11), P < 0.001”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Mixed-effects model: striatum.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“responses to social cues were higher after isolation than after fasting (b = 0.03, t = 2.5, 95% CI = (0.006,0.05), P = 0.01”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“and Pu (b = 0.03, t = 3.2, 95% CI = (0.01,0.05), P = 0.002)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Mixed-effects model: striatum.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Self-reported craving for social interaction was correlated with the SN/VTA response to social cues on both the nonisolated sessions (baseline session: r(38) = 0.37; P = 0.018; fasting session: r(38) = 0.35, P = 0.027).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- The authors state this as an assumption: The two self-report craving measures, Craving_CIC and Craving_Q, are estimates of the same hypothesized psychological process.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“social craving after isolation was more variable across participants than food craving after fasting (mean(s.d.) of craving ratings, after 10 h: food craving = 80.25(19.39); social craving = 66.38(24.52), Fig. 2; Levene’s test indicated unequal variances (F(76) = 15.86, P < 0.001)).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Subjective social craving can be evoked by acute objective social isolation.
plainn = 40- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Unexpectedly, when compared with the baseline day, deprivation led to a decreased response to the nondeprived cue, rather than an enhanced response to the deprived cue”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The two craving measures (Craving_CIC and Craving_Q) were correlated across participants in both conditions (food, Pearson’s r: r(36) = 0.52; P < 0.001; social: r(38) = 0.30; P = 0.030”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- The authors state this as an assumption: The two self-report craving measures, Craving_CIC and Craving_Q, are estimates of the same hypothesized psychological process.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Self-reported craving for food was correlated with the SN/VTA response to food cues on both nonfasted sessions (baseline session: r(38) = 0.32; P = 0.045; isolation session: r(38) = 0.43, P = 0.006).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- The authors state this as an assumption: The two self-report craving measures, Craving_CIC and Craving_Q, are estimates of the same hypothesized psychological process.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“responses to social cues were not significantly higher after isolation than after fasting (b = 0.006, t = 0.7, 95% CI = (−0.01,0.03), P = 0.50”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In the midbrain functional region of interest (ROI) (voxels maximally sensitive to reward and novelty; Fig. 3b), responses to food cues were higher after fasting than after isolation (b = 0.03, t = 3.3, 95% CI = (0.01,0.05), P = 0.001)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“but did not show significant above-chance accuracy at baseline (mean accuracy = 0.534, bootstrapped CI = (0.497,0.573), P = 0.007).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“hunger (t(36) = 23.90, P < 0.001)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Subjective social craving can be evoked by acute objective social isolation.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In the midbrain functional ROI, responses to food cues were numerically but not significantly higher after fasting and significantly lower after isolation than baseline (b = −0.06, t = −2.4, 95% CI = (−0.12,−0.01), P = 0.02)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“However, it is important to note that the classification accuracy for social cues did not differ between the isolation and baseline sessions.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“but significantly lower after isolation than baseline (b = −0.05, t = −2.1, 95% CI = (−0.11,−0.003), P = 0.038)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Individual differences in social network size did not predict either self-reported or neural responses to acute social isolation (all P values ⋝0.33).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In the anatomically defined SN/VTA (Fig. 3a), responses to food cues were higher after fasting than after isolation (beta (b) = 0.06, t = 3.1, 95% confidence interval (CI) = (0.0.02,0.09), P = 0.002)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The pattern of SN/VTA activity in response to social cues on the isolation day was more similar to the pattern of food cues on the fasting day than to food cues on the baseline day (mean Fisher-transformed dissimilarity: social_craved-food_craved = 0.87, social_craved-food_noncraved = 1.09; t(39) = 2.0, P = 0.025).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“After isolation, the SN/VTA response to social cues (versus flowers) was positively correlated with self-reported social craving on the final questionnaire (Social_Craving_Q, r(38) = 0.36; P = 0.011”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- The authors state this as an assumption: The two self-report craving measures, Craving_CIC and Craving_Q, are estimates of the same hypothesized psychological process.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“After fasting, in the anatomical SN/VTA, the response to food cues (versus flowers) was positively correlated with the participant’s self-reported food craving measured during the CIC task (Food_Craving_CIC: r(38) = 0.31; P = 0.025”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- The authors state this as an assumption: The two self-report craving measures, Craving_CIC and Craving_Q, are estimates of the same hypothesized psychological process.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This trained classifier then generalized to above-chance decoding (α = 0.001; see Methods for details and Fig. 4 for an illustration of our multivariate analysis approach) of social cues from flower images after isolation (mean accuracy = 0.542, bootstrapped CI = (0.505,0.581), P < 0.001)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In our study, people who reported higher levels of pre-existing chronic loneliness showed reduced activity in the SN/VTA in response to social cues, consistent with the idea that chronic isolation can lead to social withdrawal18,44 (but see refs.19,20).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Social cues evoked a stronger response after isolation (compared with after fasting) in Ca (b = 0.04, t = 3.0, 95% CI = (0.01,0.06), P = 0.003)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Mixed-effects model: striatum.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“SN/VTA activity was higher in people who self-reported wanting food or social interaction more, after deprivation.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Participants who reported higher levels of chronic loneliness showed a muted response in the SN/VTA to both social cues (r(38) = −0.46, P = 0.003) and food cues (r(38) = −0.37, P = 0.018, two tailed) during the baseline scan.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory behavioral analyses.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Social cues evoked a stronger response after isolation (compared with after fasting) in the OFC (b = 0.11, t = 2.53, 95% CI = (0.03,0.20), P = 0.012)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory analyses: downstream targets of the SN/VTA.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Indeed, people reporting high chronic loneliness in our study also had lower SN/VTA responses to food cues.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the strongest correlation of all was between self-reported craving for food after fasting and for social interaction after isolation (r = 0.64).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory behavioral analyses.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The multivariate pattern of SN/VTA response was similar for food and social interaction when craved.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Food cues (compared with flowers) evoked a stronger response after fasting (compared with after isolation) in the ACC (b = 0.07, t = 2.9, 95% CI = (0.02,0.12), P = 0.005)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory analyses: downstream targets of the SN/VTA.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We used two different measures of self-reported craving and, although these were correlated with each other, different craving measures were significantly correlated with SN/VTA activity for food craving and social craving.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We explored the overlap in voxels between functional and anatomical SN/VTA ROIs in each participant and found that it was variable across participants, with the maximum overlap being approximately one-third of the voxels.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“On the other hand, these two methods are probably measuring a similar underlying function because the mean activity in response to social cues after isolation was highly correlated across subjects (r(38) = 0.81; P < 0.001), as shown in the scatterplot in Supplementary Fig. 9.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We found above-chance (50%) decoding of food cues from flower images after fasting (mean accuracy = 0.5556; P < 0.001, 95% CI = 0.527–0.585).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Additional analyses.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“On this measure, participants reported craving only for the deprived need (food when fasting, social contact when isolated)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Thus, individual differences in the magnitude of the SN/VTA response to a cue are correlated with simultaneously measured self-reported craving for that cue, whether or not that cue has been selectively deprived.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- The authors state this as an assumption: The two self-report craving measures, Craving_CIC and Craving_Q, are estimates of the same hypothesized psychological process.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In humans, acute mandatory social isolation evokes a neural ‘craving’ response to social cues.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“People who are forced to be isolated crave social interactions similarly to the way in which a hungry person craves food.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Our findings suggest that there is a similar mechanism underlying social craving in humans.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Food craving and social craving thus evoke both shared (SN/VTA) and unshared (striatum, cortical regions) neural responses.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Chronic loneliness disproportionately affects people older (that is, elderly people46) and younger (that is, adolescents14) than the participants studied here; future studies should test whether the current results generalize to those more vulnerable populations.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [46] Hawkley, L. C. & Cacioppo, J. T. Loneliness matters: a theoretical and empirical review of consequences and mechanisms. Ann. Behav. Med. 40, 218–227 (2010). source
- Not checked yetcites [14] Orben, A., Tomova, L. & Blakemore, S.-J. The effects of social deprivation on adolescent development and mental health. Lancet Child Adolesc. Health https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(20)30186-3 (2020). source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Depriving one need might thus reduce motivation to pursue other needs.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
In the paper
“Thus, our research provides empirical support in human participants for the ‘social homeostasis’ hypothesis developed based on animal models43.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [43] Matthews, G. A. & Tye, K. M. Neural mechanisms of social homeostasis. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14016 (2019). source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
In the paper
“Despite the small structure of the SN/VTA, we thus chose 3-mm isotropic voxels because of their higher signal-to-noise ratio compared with smaller voxels61.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [61] Triantafyllou, C. et al. Comparison of physiological noise at 1.5T, 3T and 7T and optimization of fMRI acquisition parameters. Neuroimage 26, 243–250 (2005). source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Thus, we interpret the difference in results between functional and anatomical masks as reflecting the uncertainty of the measurement.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- It may state two separate claims as one. 22
- Probably not a substantial claim. 39
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“whereas social cues were numerically but not significantly higher after isolation than baseline and showed a trend to be lower after fasting (b = 0.01, t = −1.8, 95% CI = (−0.11,−0.004), P = 0.07”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Self-reported food craving on fasting days and social contact craving on isolation days were both higher than on the baseline day (Food_Craving_CIC: t(39) = 7.94, P < 0.001, two tailed; Social_Craving_CIC: t(39) = 4.15, P < 0.001, two tailed).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory behavioral analyses.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Midbrain regions showed selective responses to food cues after fasting and to social cues after isolation.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“self-reported cravings for food and social interaction were moderately correlated at baseline (r = 0.48), but less correlated after either need was deprived (mean r = 0.14, z = 1.64, P = 0.05).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory behavioral analyses.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“An exploratory whole-brain, random-effects analysis yielded converging results: selective responses to food craving in the NAcc, ACC, periaqueductal gray and amygdala, and selective responses to social craving in the Ca, OFC and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory analyses: downstream targets of the SN/VTA.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Yet despite our restricted sample, we observed substantial variability between individuals at baseline, in both self-reported social craving and in SN/VTA response to social cues.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plainn = 40- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In all, our finding of a more selective SN/VTA response to social cues after isolation, as well as to food cues after fasting, fits the intuitive idea that positive social interactions are a basic human need, and acute loneliness is an aversive state that motivates people to repair what is lacking, similar to hunger.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“However, because the measures were highly correlated (r(39) = 0.58, P < 0.001), we z-transformed and averaged the two measures for each participant.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Behavioral data analysis.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“As the data for food craving were truncated at the upper limit of 10 (Fig. 3c)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In the unsmoothed data, we found no above-chance decoding (α = 0.001) of social cues from flowers after isolation (mean accuracy = 0.521, bootstrapped CI = (0.503,0.542), P = 0.041) or after baseline (mean accuracy = 0.526, bootstrapped CI = (0.501,0.546), P = 0.021).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Additional analyses.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In addition, in unsmoothed data, the classifier was also unable to decode food cues from flowers after isolation and baseline (isolation: mean accuracy = 0.522, bootstrapped CI = (0.500,0.544), P = 0.021; baseline: mean accuracy = 0.525, bootstrapped CI = (0.501,0.557), P = 0.022).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Additional analyses.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In the present study, we found that omission of smoothing showed slightly lower mean accuracy across subjects (mean accuracy = 0.542), but still resulted in successful above chance (50%) decoding of food cues from flower images after fasting (P = 0.002, 95% CI = 0.513–0.570).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Additional analyses.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“we also ran the classification analyses on unsmoothed data and found that we were not able to decode stimulus or motivational state across sessions in the unsmoothed data”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“A second limitation is that we studied a small sample (n = 40) of healthy, well-connected young adults, mostly students, in one cultural context.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plainn = 40- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Note, however, that, also in domains such as drug addiction and hunger, researchers have struggled to establish a gold-standard behavioral metric of subjective craving with better external validity than self-report45.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [45] Sayette, M. A. et al. The measurement of drug craving. Addiction 95, S189–S210 (2000). source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“These results suggest that there is a reliable individual difference in craving responses after deprivation, shared across both fasting and isolation, consistent with our observation of a common neural response to both modes of deprivation.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory behavioral analyses.
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Chronic loneliness could thus be a consequence, rather than a cause, of general low responsiveness in the SN/VTA.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Thus, although the responses in SN/VTA were similar and overlapping for food craving and social craving, responses in the striatum were dissociable.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Mixed-effects model: striatum.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Thus, at baseline participants’ motivation may be spread across multiple sources of reward, and specific acute deprivation may serve to narrow and focus the brain’s motivational responses to the deprived target, rather than to enhance it.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“First, we measured craving using passive viewing of craving-related cues and self-report measures of craving, rather than a direct test of motivation, such as participants’ willingness to expend effort or money to fulfill a need.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Despite differences in the duration and setting of social isolation, and in the anatomy of DA midbrain structures, both humans and mice seem to show midbrain craving responses for social interaction, as well as for food.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Fasting was confirmed through self-report on arrival.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Experimental procedures.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
- Rests on an assumption: Participants adhered to the 10 h food fasting.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We did not measure people’s social behaviors at baseline (for example, number and quality of social interactions) or other traits broadly relevant to social interaction (for example, trait extroversion, depression, anxiety).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In all, our finding of a more selective SN/VTA response to social cues after isolation, as well as to food cues after fasting, fits the intuitive idea that positive social interactions are a basic human need, and acute loneliness is an aversive state that motivates people to repair what is lacking, similar to hunger.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Discussion
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Between participants, the order of sessions was counterbalanced; each participant was pseudo-randomly assigned to one of the possible orders of the three different sessions, with the restriction that all six possible sequences were approximately equally likely in the full sample.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Experimental procedures.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“An initial power analysis in G*Power 3.0 (ref.51) targeted on the detection of medium effects (d = 0.5, α = 0.05 and 1 − β = 0.80) suggested a sample size of n = 34.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Participants.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [51] Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A. G. & Buchner, A. G*Power 3: a flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behav. Res. Methods 39, 175–191 (2007). source
hedgedn = 34- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We therefore recruited 42 participants to account for potential attrition or exclusion for MRI data quality; 2 participants were unable to complete all experimental sessions and so were dropped from analysis, leaving 40 complete datasets.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Participants.
plainn = 40- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“The targeted-effect size was chosen based on findings from studies employing CIC paradigms for drug craving52, food cravings25,37,53,54 and internet gaming craving27, which report medium-to-large effect sizes in cue reactivity52.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Participants.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [52] Carter, B. L. & Tiffany, S. T. Meta-analysis of cue-reactivity in addiction research. Addiction 94, 327–340 (1999). source
- Not checked yetcites [25] Malik, S., McGlone, F., Bedrossian, D. & Dagher, A. Ghrelin modulates brain activity in areas that control appetitive behavior. Cell Metab. 7, 400–409 (2008). source
- Not checked yetcites [37] Goldstone, A. P. et al. Fasting biases brain reward systems towards high-calorie foods. Eur. J. Neurosci. 30, 1625–1635 (2009). source
- Not checked yetcites [53] Stice, E., Burger, K. & Yokum, S. Caloric deprivation increases responsivity of attention and reward brain regions to intake, anticipated intake, and images of palatable foods. Neuroimage 67, 322–330 (2013). source
- Not checked yetcites [54] Stevenson, R. J., Francis, H. M., Attuquayefio, T. & Ockert, C. Explicit wanting and liking for palatable snacks are differentially affected by change in physiological state, and differentially related to salivation and hunger. Physiol. Behav. 182, 101–106 (2017). source
- Not checked yetcites [27] Zhang, J. T. et al. Effects of craving behavioral intervention on neural substrates of cue-induced craving in Internet gaming disorder. Neuroimage Clin. 12, 591–599 (2016). source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The scanning parameters were extensively piloted (n = 11) using the functional localizer task (see “Functional localizer task”) and the parameters showing the best signal-to-noise ratio were selected for the study.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
plainn = 11- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Data collection was not performed blind to the conditions of the experiments.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Experimental procedures.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Any run containing a framewise displacement >0.4 mm on >25% of the total frames was excluded from additional analyses.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“A potential limitation of this approach is that it was targeting voxels responding to secondary reinforcers (that is, money) rather than primary reinforcers (such as food and social contact).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“Conditioned stimuli are somewhat less effective than primary rewards in terms of response magnitude and fractions of neurons activated67.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [67] Schultz, W. Getting formal with dopamine and reward. Neuron 36, 241–263 (2002). source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In addition, our functional localization method was complementary to an anatomical ROI, which would not be affected by this issue.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“In animal models, dopamine neurons in the midbrain exhibit burst firing in response to both primary reinforcers and conditioned stimuli once the conditioning has been established (for example, see refs.65,66).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [65] Day, J. J., Roitman, M. F., Wightman, R. M. & Carelli, R. M. Associative learning mediates dynamic shifts in dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens. Nat. Neurosci. 10, 1020–1028 (2007). source
- Not checked yetcites [66] Overton, P. & Clark, D. Burst firing in midbrain dopaminergic neurons. Brain Res. Rev. 25, 312–334 (1997). source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“As midbrain DA neurons in the SN/VTA respond to both novelty and reward62–64, we contrasted new and rewarding stimuli against familiar and nonrewarding stimuli.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [62] Krebs, R. M., Heipertz, D., Schuetze, H. & Duzel, E. Novelty increases the mesolimbic functional connectivity of the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA) during reward anticipation: evidence from high-resolution fMRI. Neuroimage 58, 647–655 (2011). source
- Not checked yetcites [63] Bunzeck, N. & Duzel, E. Absolute coding of stimulus novelty in the human substantia nigra/VTA. Neuron 51, 369–379 (2006). source
- Not checked yetcites [64] Schultz, W. Neural coding of basic reward terms of animal learning theory, game theory, microeconomics and behavioural ecology. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 14, 139–147 (2004). source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“The angle of the slices was approximately 20° away from the plane of the standard anterior commissure–posterior commissure to avoid placing the SN/VTA and the sphenoid sinus in the same slice plane. This reduced geometric distortion to the point that standard distortion correction methods could be applied28.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [28] Duzel, E. et al. Midbrain fMRI: applications, limitations and challenges. in fMRI: From Nuclear Spins to Brain Functions (eds Uludağ, K., Uğurbil, K. & Berliner, L.) 581–609 (Springer, 2015). source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Three participants missed filling out the first or last round of the online questionnaire during fasting, so statistical analyses involving this questionnaire were conducted with a sample size of n = 37.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Behavioral data analysis.
plainn = 37- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Importantly, both food and social cues would be similarly affected, so our key claim of similarity between these responses would not be undermined.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Thus, by localizing the SN/VTA based on activity in response to anticipated financial rewards, we may have identified only a subset of voxels that respond to primary rewards.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“However, our preregistered hypotheses focus on the anatomical localization strategy, so we treat analyses of the functionally localized regions as exploratory.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Exclusion criteria were pre-established in our preregistration (https://osf.io/cwg9e). We excluded three runs of fMRI data from the overall sample (from two participants from the CIC task) based on the following criterion: any run containing a framewise displacement >0.4 mm on >25% of the total frames will be excluded from additional analyses.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plainn = 2- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“The stimuli were images of strangers, rather than images of the participant’s own friends and family, to (1) match the food and control images for novelty, because SN/VTA activity is sensitive to novelty62, (2) match image quality across conditions and participants, and (3) avoid unmeasured variability in the quality or current status of participants’ relationships with specific individuals.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Functional MRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [62] Krebs, R. M., Heipertz, D., Schuetze, H. & Duzel, E. Novelty increases the mesolimbic functional connectivity of the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA) during reward anticipation: evidence from high-resolution fMRI. Neuroimage 58, 647–655 (2011). source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“We note that this method of correction for multiple comparisons is probably biased toward false positives97,98.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Additional analyses.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [97] Eklund, A., Knutsson, H. & Nichols, T. E. Cluster failure revisited: impact of first level design and physiological noise on cluster false positive rates. Hum. Brain Mapp. 40, 2017–2032 (2019). source
- Not checked yetcites [98] Eklund, A., Nichols, T. E. & Knutsson, H. Cluster failure: why fMRI inferences for spatial extent have inflated false-positive rates. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, 7900–7905 (2016). source
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“This nonparametric approach does not depend on assumptions about the distribution of classification accuracies94,95.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Stelzer et al.94 Stelzer, J., Chen, Y. & Turner, R. Statistical inference and multiple testing correction in classification-based multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA): random permutations and cluster size control. Neuroimage 65, 69–82 (2013). source
- Not checked yetcites [94] Stelzer, J., Chen, Y. & Turner, R. Statistical inference and multiple testing correction in classification-based multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA): random permutations and cluster size control. Neuroimage 65, 69–82 (2013). source
- Not checked yetcites [95] Allefeld, C., Görgen, K. & Haynes, J.-D. Valid population inference for information-based imaging: from the second-level t-test to prevalence inference. Neuroimage 141, 378–392 (2016). source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This measure was exactly comparable across sessions and simultaneous with the fMRI data acquisition.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We corrected for multiple comparisons using whole-brain family-wise error correction.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Additional analyses.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Although smoothing has been shown not to substantially affect information in multivariate data91–93”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [91] Hendriks, M. H. A., Daniels, N., Pegado, F. & Op de Beeck, H. P. The effect of spatial smoothing on representational similarity in a simple motor paradigm. Front. Neurol. 8, 222 (2017). source
- Not checked yetcites [92] Kamitani, Y. & Sawahata, Y. Spatial smoothing hurts localization but not information: pitfalls for brain mappers. Neuroimage 49, 1949–1952 (2010). source
- Not checked yetcites [93] Op de Beeck, H. P. Against hyperacuity in brain reading: spatial smoothing does not hurt multivariate fMRI analyses? Neuroimage 49, 1943–1948 (2010). source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“but this measure provides the most direct measure of the effect of deprivation because it can be compared with the self-report at the start of each session.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“These analyses were exploratory and statistical inference was performed using a threshold of P < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons over the whole brain, using the Gaussian random fields approach at cluster level with a voxel-level intensity threshold of P < 0.001 (ref.96).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Additional analyses.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites ref.96
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“Following the recommendation of Barr et al.87, we used maximal models, including participants as a random effect with both random intercepts and random slopes.”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [87] Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C. & Tily, H J. Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: keep it maximal. J. Memory Lang. 68, 255–278 (2013). source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We modeled these effects in the anatomically defined SN/VTA (preregistered analysis) and in the functionally defined ROI of voxels maximally sensitive to reward and novelty (exploratory analysis).”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Methods > Data analysis of fMRI.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
The paper relies on this without support.
The baseline day represents a nondeprived state for both food and social needs.
“baseline day (when participants’ food intake and social interactions were not controlled or measured)”
The authors state this as an assumption.
The two self-report craving measures, Craving_CIC and Craving_Q, are estimates of the same hypothesized psychological process.
“We consider the two self-report measures to be estimates of the same hypothesized psychological process”
The paper relies on this without support.
The CIC task cues, including pictures of favorite social activities, favorite foods and flowers, selectively evoke craving for the deprived target.
“we developed a CIC paradigm, in which participants viewed pictures of their favorite social activities, favorite foods and a pleasant control (flowers).”
The authors state this as an assumption.
Data distribution was assumed to be normal but was not formally tested.
“Data distribution was assumed to be normal but this was not formally tested.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Participants adhered to the 10 h food fasting.
“Fasting was confirmed through self-report on arrival.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Participants adhered to the 10 h social isolation.
“Participants were socially isolated for 10 h.”
The authors state this as an assumption.
Data distribution was assumed to be normal but this was not formally tested.
“Data distribution was assumed to be normal but this was not formally tested.”
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“It has been shown that human exposure to social cues after acute isolation evokes activity in the VTA (Tomova et al., 2020), suggesting that while DA neurons within the DRN mediate the loneliness-like brain state induced by social isolation, DA neurons in the VTA mediate social craving.”
From Oxytocin neurons mediate the effect of social isolation via the VTA circuits (2022) · cites this paper as Tomova et al., 2020
In the citing paper
“Brief periods of acute social isolation have been reported to activate midbrain regions in humans (Tomova et al., 2020) and increase DA neurons’ activity within the dorsal Raphe nucleus (DRN) in mice (Matthews et al., 2016).”
From Oxytocin neurons mediate the effect of social isolation via the VTA circuits (2022) · cites this paper as Tomova et al., 2020
In the citing paper
“in humans, the response of the VTA to social cues after brief isolation is increased (Tomova et al., 2020).”
From Oxytocin neurons mediate the effect of social isolation via the VTA circuits (2022) · cites this paper as Tomova et al., 2020
In the citing paper
“These data support the hypothesis that social interaction is a need and that the absence of social cues generates a craving response like that caused by food cues after fasting (Tomova et al., 2020).”
From Oxytocin neurons mediate the effect of social isolation via the VTA circuits (2022) · cites this paper as Tomova et al., 2020
In the citing paper
“It has been shown that human exposure to social cues after acute isolation evokes activity in the VTA (Tomova et al., 2020), suggesting that while DA neurons within the DRN mediate the loneliness-like brain state induced by social isolation, DA neurons in the VTA mediate social craving.”
From Oxytocin neurons mediate the effect of social isolation via the VTA circuits (2022) · cites this paper as Tomova et al., 2020
Statistics recomputed
Every reported test result, recomputed from its test statistic and degrees of freedom. A result shows as not adding up only once an independent check has confirmed it.
- Consistentt(39) = 5reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(39) = 5.00, p < .001”
- Consistentt(39) = 5.17reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(39) = 5.17, p < .001”
- Consistentt(39) = 5.57reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(39) = 5.57, p < .001”
- Consistentt(39) = 4.13reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(39) = 4.13, p < .001”
- Consistentt(39) = -4.21reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(39) = −4.21, p < .001”
- Consistentt(36) = 17.4reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(36) = 17.40, p < .001”
- Consistentt(36) = 23.9reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(36) = 23.90, p < .001”
- Consistentt(36) = 13.56reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(36) = 13.56, p < .001”
- Consistentt(36) = 6.28reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(36) = 6.28, p < .001”
- Consistentt(36) = -3.05reported p = .004 · recomputed p = .004
“t(36) = −3.05, p = .004”
- Consistentt(39) = 2reported p = .025 · recomputed p = .052
“t(39) = 2.0, p = .025”
The paper states a one-tailed test
- Consistentt(39) = 1.4reported p = .08 · recomputed p = .169
“t(39) = 1.4, p = .08”
The paper states a one-tailed test
- Consistentr(38) = 0.43reported p = .006 · recomputed p = .006
“r(38) = 0.43, p = .006”
- Consistentr(38) = 0.35reported p = .027 · recomputed p = .027
“r(38) = 0.35, p = .027”
- Consistentz = 1.64reported p = .05 · recomputed p = .101
“z = 1.64, p = .05”
The paper states a one-tailed test
- Consistentz = 1.26reported p = .1 · recomputed p = .208
“z = 1.26, p = .10”
The paper states a one-tailed test
- Consistentt(39) = 7.94reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(39) = 7.94, p < .001”
- Consistentt(39) = 4.15reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(39) = 4.15, p < .001”
- Consistentt(39) = 3.59reported p = .001 · recomputed p < .001
“t(39) = 3.59, p = .001”
- Consistentt(39) = 0.64reported p = .526 · recomputed p = .526
“t(39) = 0.64, p = .526”
- Consistentr(38) = -0.46reported p = .003 · recomputed p = .003
“r(38) = −0.46, p = .003”
- Consistentr(38) = -0.37reported p = .018 · recomputed p = .019
“r(38) = −0.37, p = .018”
- Consistentr(38) = -0.4reported p = .011 · recomputed p = .011
“r(38) = −0.40, p = .011”
- Consistentr(38) = -0.15reported p = .367 · recomputed p = .356
“r(38) = −0.15, p = .367”
- Consistentr(39) = 0.58reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001
“r(39) = 0.58, p < .001”
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
“b = 0.01”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
“t = −1.8, 95% CI = (−0.11,−0.004), P = 0.07”
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > After isolation, social cues evoke neural signatures of craving.
“food, Pearson’s r: r(36) = 0.52; P < 0.001”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory behavioral analyses.
“food r(38) = 0.52; P < 0.001”
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory analyses: downstream targets of the SN/VTA.
“95% CI = (0.0007,0.07)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory analyses: downstream targets of the SN/VTA.
“P = 0.055”
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory analyses: downstream targets of the SN/VTA.
“95% CI = (0.0003,0.07)”
§ Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger > Results > Exploratory analyses: downstream targets of the SN/VTA.
“P = 0.052”
Citations
Cites
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Cortical Surface-Based Analysis
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
The effects of social deprivation on adolescent development and mental health
Orben, A., Tomova, L., & Blakemore, S.-J. (2020) · The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health · doi:10.1016/s2352-4642(20)30186-3 · Cited by 1,383
Self-citationAdolescent psychiatric disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown
Guessoum, S. B., Lachal, J., Radjack, R., Carretier, E., Minassian, S., Benoit, L., & Moro, M. R. (2020) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113264 · Cited by 1,025
Associations of Social Isolation and Loneliness With Later Dementia
Shen, C., Rolls, E. T., Cheng, W., Kang, J., Dong, G., Xie, C., Zhao, X.-M., Sahakian, B. J., & Feng, J. (2022) · Neurology · doi:10.1212/wnl.0000000000200583 · Cited by 266
Neurobiology of loneliness: a systematic review
Lam, J. A., Murray, E. R., Yu, K. E., Ramsey, M., Nguyen, T. T., Mishra, J., Martis, B., Thomas, M. L., & Lee, E. (2021) · Neuropsychopharmacology · doi:10.1038/s41386-021-01058-7 · Cited by 250
Antunes, R., Frontini, R., Amaro, N., Salvador, R., Matos, R. M. N., Morouço, P., & Rebelo‐Gonçalves, R. (2020) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph17124360 · Cited by 232
Metadata
- Authors
- Tomova, L., Wang, K. L., Thompson, T., Matthews, G. A., Takahashi, A., Tye, K. M., & Saxe, R.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Salk Institute for Biological Studies (US)
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tomova, Livia
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2020-11-23
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1597-1605
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- PMC
- PMC8580014
- OpenAlex
- W3110344697
- Semantic Scholar
- 00f7759c93061c19417ac07857a48818a1d20688
- Cited by
- 283
- References
- 99
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 48 · 2024: 50 · 2023: 46 · 2022: 66 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 6
- FWCI
- 17.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2022-01-06)
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (acceptedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1231216)
- Simons Foundation
- Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative
- Max Kade Foundation
- Austrian Science Fund (J 4326)
- National Institutes of Health (1s10od021569-01)
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (DP1AT009925)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Regulation of Appetite and Obesity
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Keywords
- social isolation, hunger, food cues, social cues, midbrain, deprivation, loneliness, motivation, striatum
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Cues, Fasting, Female, Food, Humans, Hunger, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Mesencephalon, Motivation, Social Environment, Social Isolation, Neostriatum, Ventral Tegmental Area, Young Adult, Craving
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-09, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).
A second model labelled each claim on 2026-10-09 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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