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Previous research implies that the extent of welfare state regime provision plays an important indirect role in the prevalence of loneliness in later life. The aim of this study was therefore to assess the association between quality of living conditions and level of social integration indictors and the absence of loneliness in five different welfare regimes. By incorporating welfare state regimes as a proxy for societal-level features, we expanded the micro-level model of loneliness suggesting that besides individual characteristics, welfare state characteristics are also important protective factors against loneliness. The data source was from the European Social Survey, ESS round 7, 2014, from which we analysed 11,389 individuals aged 60 and over from 20 countries. The association between quality of living conditions, level of social integration variables and the absence of loneliness was analysed using multivariate logistical regression treating the welfare regime variable as a fixed effect. Our study revealed that absence of loneliness was strongly associated with individual characteristics of older adults, including self-rated health, household size, feeling of safety, marital status, frequency of being social as well as number of confidants. Further, the Nordic as well as Anglo-Saxon and Continental welfare regimes performed better than the Southern and Eastern regimes when it came to absence of loneliness. The interaction terms in our final analyses showed that the association between welfare state regimes and absence of loneliness was not independent of the included background variables and the influence of the variables varied across different social protection systems. We conclude that the understanding of loneliness is linked to the social policy systems of particular countries.

identified facilitators were related to legislation and disability policies, as well as to support from people in close contact with disabled people, attitudes in society and employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Biological rhythms, and especially the sleep/wake cycle, are frequently disrupted during senescence. This draws attention to the study of aging-related changes in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the master circadian pacemaker. The authors here compared the SCN of young and old mice, analyzing presynaptic terminals, including the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic network, and molecules related to the regulation of GABA, the main neurotransmitter of SCN neurons. Transcripts of the alpha3 subunit of the GABAA receptor and the GABA-synthesizing enzyme glutamic acid decarboxylase isoform 67 (GAD67) were analyzed with real-time RT-PCR and GAD67 protein with Western blotting. These parameters did not show significant changes between the 2 age groups. Presynaptic terminals were identified in confocal microscopy with synaptophysin immunofluorescence, and the GABAergic subset of those terminals was revealed by the colocalization of GAD67 and synaptophysin. Quantitative analysis of labeled synaptic endings performed in 2 SCN subregions, where retinal afferents are known to be, respectively, very dense or very sparse, revealed marked aging-related changes. In both subregions, the evaluated parameters (the number of and the area covered by presynaptic terminals and by their GABAergic subset) were significantly decreased in old versus young mice. No significant differences were found between SCN tissue samples from animals sacrificed at different times of day, in either age group. Altogether, the data point out marked reduction in the synaptic network of the aging biological clock, which also affects GABAergic terminals. Such alterations could underlie aging-related SCN dysfunction, including low-amplitude output during senescence.