As found by Livia Tomova on November 23rd, 2020 at MIT, the brains of those who are lonely crave people similarly to how hungry people’s brains crave food.

In the study, people were deprived of food for 10 hours and then shown different foods to activate their brains. When shown the food, neurons in the substantia pars compacta and the ventral tegmental area regions of the brain. When the same people were isolated from all social activity for 10 hours, the same neurons
were fired when the people were shown social activity.

The intensity of this effect was altered based on how long the people were isolated. The place where these neurons were fired is known as the midbrain. This part of the brain determines someone’s want to seek out something such as a relationship. The motivation is specific to what the person is missing the most at the time.

However, for people who were more consistently lonely, the effect was lessened due to a possible tolerance built up from a lack of social action. As stated by Tomova, “Maybe being isolated doesn’t really affect them as much, because it’s something that is not that different, perhaps, from their everyday life.”