What is it about?

We usually think friendships happen when two people just "click." But our research shows the environment in which you meet someone matters too. We found that certain brain regions track these social environments—and surprisingly, they're the same regions involved in searching for food. This suggests that seeking social connection might be as basic a human drive as hunger, using similar brain circuits to help us find what we need.

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Why is it important?

Loneliness and social isolation are major health concerns, yet we know surprisingly little about how people actually start making friends in the first place. This study reveals that your environment, like how friendly a place feels or how many chances you get to meet people, plays a critical role. We also found that the similar brain systems we use to search for food are linked to navigating social environments. This suggests that connecting with others might not be just "nice to have"—it may be a core human need. Understanding this could help us design better spaces and opportunities for people to form meaningful connections, which is especially important given rising rates of loneliness in modern society.

Perspectives

This study took over four years to complete. Everything was relatively new or built from the ground up—a new experimental paradigm, cutting-edge neuroimaging methods, and questions spanning behaviour, mental health, and brain circuits. But I believe the effort was worthwhile. Understanding how social connections begin, how they shape our mental health, and what neural mechanisms make them possible are important questions that deserve this depth of investigation. I hope our work sheds meaningful light on all three.

Sankalp Garud
University of Oxford

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Fundamental features of social environments determine rate of social affiliation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2506243122.
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