A comprehensive new review published in the Journal of Management synthesizes decades of research to understand the epidemic of workplace loneliness. By analyzing 233 empirical studies, researchers from Portland State University have identified how workplace conditions contribute to isolation and offer evidence-based paths to reconnection.

The research emphasizes that loneliness is distinct from social isolation. While isolation is about being alone, loneliness is the subjective feeling that one’s social relationships are deficient—meaning employees can feel deeply lonely even in a crowded office.

"Given the connection between workplace characteristics and loneliness, organizations should consider that loneliness is not a personal issue, and instead is a business issue," said Berrin Erdogan, professor of management at Portland State. "Businesses have an opportunity to design jobs and organizations in a way that will prioritize employee relational well being."

UC Irvine and Jefferson Health investigators identify distinct structural and blood-flow signatures in two major forms of mitral stenosis. Findings highlight limitations of applying rheumatic-based diagnostic criteria to calcification-driven disease. The research was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

As individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) move from the mild cognitive impairment stage to moderate and severe dementia, complex awareness deteriorates although lower-level sensory awareness is relatively maintained. Most conscious processes also become more impaired as AD progresses, including attention, working memory, episodic memory and executive function, while unconscious processes, such as procedural or muscle memory, operant conditioning (behavior controlled by consequences), and priming (where the experience of stimulus affects the processing of a similar stimulus) are relatively spared. However, as damage spreads across different cortical regions in dementias such as AD, corresponding aspects of conscious awareness becomes diminished and then lost.

One measure of brain complexity, the perturbation complexity index-state transitions (PCI-ST), can be calculated by recording EEG signals following a transcranial magnetic stimulation pulse. This measure has previously been used to determine when people are in coma versus in a minimally conscious state. A new study asks whether this same measure could be used to evaluate the integrity of conscious processing in people with AD. 

According to researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, the answer is yes. They found that brain complexity in response to magnetic stimulation was reduced in people with AD compared with people aging normally.