Loneliness may run in families

For two people with the same number of close friends and family, one might see their social structure as adequate while the other doesn't," said lead researcher Abraham Palmer, Professor of Psychiatry at University of California - San Diego School of Medicine in the US. "And that's what we mean by 'genetic predisposition to loneliness' -- we want to know why, genetically speaking, one person is more likely than another to feel lonely, even in the same situation," Palmer noted.