Food, water — and a friendly face
Ding Liu (right), a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Catherine Dulac (left).Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer Health Food, water — and a friendly face Health professionals view social contact as basic human need. Now researchers have tracked neurological basis for it. Clea Simon Harvard Correspondent February 26, 2025 5 min read Health and medical professionals have come to view social connection as a fundamental human need akin to food and shelter. In fact the U.S. Surgeon General highlighted social isolation as a major public health concern in 2023. However, the mechanics of how loneliness or instinctive social need is encoded in the brain are unclear. A new study published in Nature, “A Hypothalamic Circuit Underlying the Dynamic Control of Social Homeostasis,” explores the neurological basis for this need, uncovering the systems that govern the desire for company. “Recent studies, including ours, suggest that social needs are similarly important for the health of animals as other [basic] needs,” said Ding Liu,...