SynthesisMolecular psychiatry2023
Loneliness and depression: bidirectional mendelian randomization analyses using data from three large genome-wide association studies.
Synthesis in Molecular psychiatry, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- Shared genetic architecture across social disconnection, social disadvantage, and psychiatric and neurodevelopmental traits.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- Investigating relationships between loneliness, social isolation and health.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Social disconnection and subsequent mental disorders: a population-based cohort study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Associations of social isolation and loneliness with neurological disorders, psychiatric disorders, brain structures and behavioural phenotypes among UK Biobank participants.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Social Disconnection, Genetic Risk, and the Incidence of Degenerative Valvular Heart Disease: A Population-Based Cohort Study.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2026Article
- Social Networks and Loneliness in the Blackfeet American Indian Community.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2026Article
- Identification of genetic associations and key influences contributing to the pathway from social isolation or loneliness to depression.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- From loneliness to depression: A longitudinal diagnostic study among Norwegian university students.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- The association between feelings of loneliness and the number of social relationships in depression: a cross-sectional study of German adults.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Decomposition and comparative analysis of differences in loneliness between urban and rural older adults: evidence from a national survey.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Relationships between primal emotional systems and the sense of loneliness: The mediating role of early maladaptive schemas.PloS one · 2026Article
- From exercise dose to social dose: a narrative review of the components, mechanisms, and design principles of group-based physical activity interventions to reduce loneliness.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Unraveling the Shared Genetic Architecture and Polygenic Overlap Between Loneliness, Major Depressive Disorder, and Sleep-Related Traits.Biomedicines · 2025Article
- Association of loneliness trajectories with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a cohort study from China.NPJ primary care respiratory medicine · 2025Article
- Association between the number of children and depression in the population aged 50 years and older: a multi-national cross-sectional analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Article
- Contributors to age inequalities in loneliness among older adults: a decomposition analysis of 29 countries.Aging & mental health · 2025Article
- Exploring Factors Related to Social Isolation Among Older Adults in the Predementia Stage Using Ecological Momentary Assessments and Actigraphy: Machine Learning Approach.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Psychological symptoms and loneliness in unemployed people diagnosed with mental illnesses.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Relationships of social isolation and loneliness with healthy aging among older adults.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 6 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Major depression (MD) is a serious psychiatric illness afflicting nearly 5% of the world's population. A large correlational literature suggests that loneliness is a prospective risk factor for MD; correlational assocations of this nature may be confounded for a variety of reasons. This report uses Mendelian Randomization (MR) to examine potentially causal associations between loneliness and MD. We report on analyses using summary statistics from three large genome wide association studies (GWAS). MR analyses were conducted using three independent sources of GWAS summary statistics. In the first set of analyses, we used available summary statistics from an extant GWAS of loneliness to predict MD risk. We used two sources of outcome data: the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) meta-analysis of MD (PGC-MD; N = 142,646) and the Million Veteran Program (MVP-MD; N = 250,215). Finally, we reversed analyses using data from the MVP and PGC samples to identify risk variants for MD and used loneliness outcome data from UK Biobank. We find robust evidence for a bidirectional causal relationship between loneliness and MD, including between loneliness, depression cases status, and a continuous measure of depressive symptoms. The estimates remained significant across several sensitivity analyses, including models that account for horizontal pleiotropy. This paper provides the first genetically-informed evidence that reducing loneliness may play a causal role in decreasing risk for depressive illness, and these findings support efforts to reduce loneliness in order to prevent or ameliorate MD. Discussion focuses on the public health significance of these findings, especially in light of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
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