this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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192
Using fMRI scans on 19 lonely fans of “Game of Thrones”, researchers discovered that they processed their favorite characters similarly to real friends in their brains. This suggests that lonelier ... (news.osu.edu)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Using fMRI scans on 19 lonely fans of “Game of Thrones”, researchers discovered that they processed their favorite characters similarly to real friends in their brains. This suggests that lonelier ...::In lonely people, the boundary between real friends and favorite fictional characters gets blurred in the part of the brain that is active when thinking about others, a new study found.Researchers scanned the brains of people who were fans of “Game of Thrones” while they thought about various characters in the show and about their real frien...

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I am not that lonely, but I have imaginary friends who are fictional characters from books and actual people from history. I talk to them in my head when bored, like when folding laundry or driving. I wonder what that would look like in an MRI.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Look at r/tulpas on reddit (no lemmy community as of now)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I'd look at online gaming.

Classic MMORPGs seem like they would be right up this alley.