Dr Livia Tomova

(she/her)

Publication

• Date
• Type

Research

Neuroscience of unmet social needs

Longitudinal associations between real-life social disconnection and reward responsiveness in adolescents

Using secondary data analyses of ABCD data, we are studying whether and how within-subject changes in real-life social disconnection predict changes in neural reward responsiveness in adolescents.

Effects of social isolation on adolescent cognition

While many studies focus on loneliness in elderly people, surveys (e.g., Hammond, 2019) show that adolescents and young adults report the highest loneliness levels in the UK. Using experimentally induced, short-term isolation we assessed how isolation impacts adolescent cognition focusing on reward processing (i.e., motivation to obtain rewards and reward learning) and threat learning. We also explored whether and how access to virtual social interactions can remediate effects of isolation.

Neural representation of social craving

Animal models suggest that dopamine neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus of the midbrain code for the drive to re-engage in social interactions following social isolation. But how is social craving represented in the human brain? And is the neural signature of social craving similar to other drives (e.g., food craving)? We used fMRI and multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to investigate the neural representation of social craving in the human brain and found that the substantia nigra in the midbrain showed similar responses to food cues after fasting and to social cues after isolation. These responses were correlated with self-reported craving suggesting that they represent a neural correlate of wanting food or social contact.

Effects of social stress on neural representations of rewards for others

Using multivariate analyses of fMRI data (representational similarity analysis, RSA), we found that acute social stress increases the dissimilarity of neural patterns underlying high and low value representation for others. Participants who showed higher dissimilarity also played more favorably for others. Thus, our results suggest that stressed individuals show higher sensitivity for other people's rewards.

Effects of social stress on empathy for pain

Using fMRI, we found that stress increased activation in brain areas associated with the automatic sharing of others' pain which predicted subsequent prosocial behaviour. This suggests that acute stress might increase prosocial behaviour by intensifying the sharing of others' emotions.