How childhood social isolation causes social dysfunction: deprivation or mismatch?

Abstract

There is a major gap in our understanding of how childhood social isolation causes adult social dysfunction. To stimulate future developmental mechanistic studies, we present two conceptual models which highlight that isolation can disrupt developmental events that are concurrent (social deprivation model) or subsequent (developmental mismatch model) to adverse experience.

Keywords: brain maturation; developmental mismatch; social behavior; social experience; social isolation.

Figure 1.. Overview of the social deprivation and developmental mismatch models.

(A) According to the social deprivation model, developmental trajectories of group-housed and juvenile social isolation mice start to diverge at the onset of isolation and deficits are fully present at the end of isolation. Re-grouping from mid-adolescence fails to correct deficits because developmental plasticity has waned. Based on this model, intervention is necessary during juvenile isolation period (green). (B) According to the developmental mismatch model, trajectories start to diverge when developmental adaptations to living in isolation conflict with the social environment during the re-grouped mid-late adolescent period. Based on this model, interventions may even be possible after the isolation period, during adolescence (green).