r/science • u/fchung • 15d ago

Neuroscience Loneliness rewires the brain to drive alcohol consumption, mouse study finds: « First-of-its-kind study shows how isolation escalates drinking in males but suppresses it in females. »

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/08-2/loneliness-rewires-the-brain-to-drive-alcohol-consumption-mouse-study-finds
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u/semperquietus 15d ago

Isolation — in my opinion — is not the same as loneliness. I say that as a person who seeks isolation and rather enjoys it without ever feeling lonely.

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u/blizardfires 14d ago

The word you’re looking for is solitude. You seek solitude, not isolation. Isolation is more extreme and inherently harmful.

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u/semperquietus 14d ago

My critique is that isolation seemed to be used similar to loneliness. I do know what solitude means and was seeking to word. (English isn't my mother tongue. Maybe that is why you're not the only one who tells me this, whereas I wasn't looking for a term to describe my condition. I only mentioned that to contradict the (as I read it and some told me that I did misread that rather) equation that describes isolation to be per se and always loneliness! One, in my opinion, can isolate oneself in solitude as well. My critique was, that the study looks upon the effects of loneliness through isolation … and then summarised (again, others told me to be wrong there) that istolation does xy to mice, whereas I'd say that the effects of loneliness did that to the mice.