Brain functional connectivity differs when viewing pictures from natural and built environments using fMRI resting state analysis

Kühn, Simone; Forlim, Caroline Garcia; Lender, Anja; Wirtz, Janina; Gallinat, Jürgen

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-83246-5

Cited by 25 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Furthermore, in the low restorative potential group, there was a higher posterior cingulate activity, which is usually associated with endogenous attention ( 45 ). Kunh and colleagues ( 46 ) adopted a complementary approach not only by focusing on the functional connectivity between brain areas (instead of task-related regional activation) but also by matching the presented natural and built environmental images according to the dimension of perceived pleasantness (although the images used were not necessarily from an urban context). They found higher levels of connectivity when participants were watching natural scenes (compared to images with buildings), making this network activation less pronounced if the individuals’ upbringing was longer in major cities.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cities and neuroscience research: A systematic literature review

Ancora

Blanco-Mora²,

Alves³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychiatry

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BackgroundCities are becoming the socio-economic hubs for most of the world’s population. Understanding how our surroundings can mentally affect everyday life has become crucial to integrate environmental sustainability into urban development. The present review aims to explore the empirical studies investigating neural mechanisms underlying cognitive and emotional processes elicited by the exposure to different urban built and natural spaces. It also tries to identify new research questions and to leverage neurourbanism as a framework to achieve healthier and sustainable cities.MethodsBy following the PRISMA framework, we conducted a structured search on PubMed, ProQuest, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. Only articles related to how urban environment–built or natural–affects brain activity through objective measurement (with either imaging or electrophysiological techniques) were considered. Further inclusion criteria were studies on human adult populations, peer-reviewed, and in English language.ResultsSixty-two articles met the inclusion criteria. They were qualitatively assessed and analyzed to determine the main findings and emerging concepts. Overall, the results suggest that urban built exposure (when compared to natural spaces) elicit activations in brain regions or networks strongly related to perceptual, attentional, and (spatial) cognitive demands. The city’s-built environment also triggers neural circuits linked to stress and negative affect. Convergence of these findings was observed across neuroscience techniques, and for both laboratory and real-life settings. Additionally, evidence also showed associations between neural social stress processing with urban upbringing or current city living–suggesting a mechanistic link to certain mood and anxiety disorders. Finally, environmental diversity was found to be critical for positive affect and individual well-being.ConclusionContemporary human-environment interactions and planetary challenges imply greater understanding of the neurological underpinnings on how the urban space affects cognition and emotion. This review provides scientific evidence that could be applied for policy making on improved urban mental health. Several studies showed that high-quality green or blue spaces, and bio-diverse urban areas, are important allies for positive neural, cognitive, and emotional processes. Nonetheless, the spatial perception in social contexts (e.g., city overcrowding) deserves further attention by urban planners and scientists. The implications of these observations for some theories in environmental psychology and research are discussed. Future work should take advantage of technological advancements to better characterize behavior, brain physiology, and environmental factors and apply them to the remaining complexity of contemporary cities.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cities and neuroscience research: A systematic literature review

Ancora

Blanco-Mora²,

Alves³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychiatry

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“…Compared to urban scenes, viewing natural landscapes in a laboratory setting was linked with cognitive restoration, reduced visual attention focus (129), and activation of brain areas associated with positive emotional responses, rewarding experience, and recollection of positive memories (105,130–132). Additionally, nature images evoked enhanced FC between the DMN, dorsal attention network, ventral attention network, and the somatomotor network, potentially promoting cognitive coherence and effortless attentional engagement (133).…”

Section: Natural Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

How does the macroenvironment influence brain and behaviour – a review of current status and future perspectives

Polemiti,

Hese,

Schepanski

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The environment influences mental health, both detrimentally and beneficially. Current research has emphasized the individual psychosocial ‘microenvironment’. Less attention has been paid to ‘macro-environmental’ challenges including climate change, pollution, urbanicity and socioeconomic disparity. With the advent of large-scale big-data cohorts and an increasingly dense mapping of macroenvironmental parameters, we are now in a position to characterise the relation between macroenvironment, brain, and behaviour across different geographic and cultural locations globally. This review synthesises findings from recent epidemiological and neuroimaging studies, aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing evidence between the macroenvironment and the structure and functions of the brain, with a particular emphasis on its implications for mental illness. We discuss putative underlying mechanisms and address the most common exposures of the macroenvironment. Finally, we identify critical areas for future research to enhance our understanding of the aetiology of mental illness and to inform effective interventions for healthier environments and mental health promotion.

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“…The use of MRI is expensive and access often limited, the systems are heavy, and the recorded signal is susceptible to movements requiring stationary protocols with participants lying supine in the scanner not allowed to move at all (Gramann et al, 2011). Experimental protocols using MRI are thus restricted to watching images or videos of the built environment while the associated brain dynamics are recorded (e.g., Kim et al, 2010; Kühn et al, 2021). It is possible though to combine information about the individual living conditions and responses to urban or other stressors beyond the immediate response to urban stimulus material (Dimitrov-Discher et al, 2023; Spiers & Maguire, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile EEG for Neurourbanism Research - What Could Possibly Go Wrong? A Critical Review with Guidelines

Gramann

2024

Preprint

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Based on increasing incidents of mental ill-health associated with living in dense urban environments, the field of Neurourbanism developed rapidly, aiming at identifying and improving urban factors that impact the health of city dwellers. Neurourbanism and the closely related field of Neuro-Architecture have seen a surge in studies using mobile electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the impact of the built and natural environment on human brain activity moving from the laboratory into the real world. This trend predominantly arises from the ready availability of affordable and portable consumer hardware, which not only guarantees operational simplicity but also frequently incorporates automated data analysis functions. This significantly streamlines the process of EEG data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation, seemingly challenging the necessity of specialized expertise in the method of EEG or neurosciences in general. As a consequence, numerous studies in the field of Neurourbanism have used such off-the-shelf systems in laboratory and real-world experimental protocols including active movement of participants through the environment. However, the recording and analysis of EEG data entails numerous requisites, the disregard of which may culminate in errors during data acquisition, processing, and subsequent interpretation, potentially compromising the scientific validity of the outcomes. The often relatively low number of electrodes offered by affordable and portable consumer EEG systems further restricts specific analyses approaches to the low-dimensional EEG data. Crucially, a large part of Neurourbanism studies used black-box analyses provided by such consumer systems or incorrectly applied complex data-driven analyses methods that are incompatible with the recorded low-dimensional data. The current manuscript delineates the prerequisites concerning EEG hardware and analytical methodologies applicable to stationary and mobile EEG protocols, whether conducted within a controlled laboratory environment or in real-world settings. It conducts a comprehensive review of EEG studies within the domain of Neurourbanism and Neuro-Architecture, assessing their adherence to these prerequisites. The findings reveal severe deficiencies in the utilization of hardware and data processing methods, thereby rendering these studies unsuitable for scientific scrutiny. Consequently, the present paper provides guidelines for the selection of EEG hardware and analytical strategies for researchers engaged in mobile EEG recordings, be it within a laboratory or real-world context, aimed at steering future investigations in the field of Neurourbanism and Neuro-Architecture.

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Brain functional connectivity differs when viewing pictures from natural and built environments using fMRI resting state analysis

Cited by 25 publications

References 55 publications

Cities and neuroscience research: A systematic literature review

Cities and neuroscience research: A systematic literature review

How does the macroenvironment influence brain and behaviour – a review of current status and future perspectives

Mobile EEG for Neurourbanism Research - What Could Possibly Go Wrong? A Critical Review with Guidelines

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