ALONE: The Brain, Sensory Deprivation and Isolation (2008) « Documentaries-Lectures.

Isolation of all kinds is deadly for a species like ours that depends on sociality to survive.  It’s literally a question of life or death.  Feral children, children left unattended in orphanages, prisoners locked in isolation for days, months or years on end, all present with sometimes severe brain damage and often death.  In a study of children raised in orphanages and in prisons, Spitz (1945) found that the children raised in prisons with their mothers developed normally whereas children raised in orphanages with little attendance died at a very high rate, 25% not surviving until the age of 4.  This film describes a 2008 British experiment of isolation.  Six volunteers were isolated for 48 hours.  Watch the film to see what happens to them.