Dartmouth Events

Abstract: Forging and maintaining meaningful social connections is critical to mental and physical well-being. How do our brains support our efforts to be successful in initiating and maintaining social ties? In this talk, I highlight some of my work that uses neuroimaging and social network analysis to study various facets of social connection. First, I present neural and behavioral evidence that underscores the role of information sharing as a fundamentally social act, one that we engage in to feel connected with others. Next, I show results from recent work that highlights neural responses that distinguish individuals who are well-connected from those who are less well-connected in a social network, as well as factors that contribute to subjective feelings of social disconnection. Taken together, these findings suggest that a shared sense of understanding of the world around us, as reflected in convergent neural processing across brains, helps us feel close to one another.