Check out the full study: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

All in all,

Bridging social psychology, neuroscience, and mental health, we show:

- background features of social environments shape our social decisions
- these decisions are linked to mental health profiles
- ancient foraging circuits might also track social environments

Next, using ultra-high-field fMRI, we found that both environmental features affected neural activity in regions linked to foraging—including dorsal raphe nucleus, and substantia nigra

That analogous circuits track food and friendship might speak to social connection as a fundamental human need.

We also found individual differences: General social behaviour and sensitivity to these environmental features correlated with mental health dimensions like social thriving and anhedonia.

These patterns could help us identify who might benefit from interventions, opening paths to targeted support

In a pre-registered study with 700+ participants, we found that both friendliness and density had a significant influence on choices.

In other words, social environments might shape our tendency to initiate connection.

We developed a novel paradigm where participants sent friend requests in different social environments.

These environments varied in two features:

Friendliness: How likely is my request accepted?
Density: How many people are around?

We all know friendship is about "clicking" with someone—shared interests, personality, chemistry.

But we discovered something surprising: our brains might also track basic features of our social environments, using similar circuits it uses to forage for rewards.

What are these basic features? 👇

How do we decide to reach out and make friends?

My PhD work on this question is out today in @pnas.org 🎉

Study done in collaboration with the incredible
@mirunarascu.bsky.social, @sorcha-hamilton.bsky.social, Ingrid Yu, and my two amazing supervisors, Matthew Rushworth and @mkflugge.bsky.social👇

Passed my PhD viva today @UniOxford! It's been a wonderful and joyous journey! Huge thanks to @mkflugge.bsky.social and Matthew Rushworth for being phenomenal advisors. Also thanks to @thepsychologist.bsky.social and Cath Harmer for being great assessors.

Preprint/paper to follow!

PhD is done! What an amazing journey :)

Yay! Thank you! And thank you for being the best supervisor ever :)

Hi BlueSky! 😊

My name’s Sankalp, and I just submitted my PhD thesis at Oxford University (in psychology and neuroscience)! 🎉

I've spent the last few years studying how our brains work, friendships, and mental health.

I've also meditated for 10+ years! 🧘🏽‍♂️

I hope to talk about psychology!