Urban life is bad for the brain

Life in the city is linked to an increase in brain activity associated with mental illness .

A new study finds that living in a city can increase activity in the brain region associated with mental illness.

Scientists from the Central Institute of Mental Health in Germany and McGill University in Canada have used functional imaging to assess the stress of urban life.

Living in the city can increase activity in the brain region associated with mental illness

Their results appear today in Nature (Nature).

The author, Professor Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg explains, we all know that the risk of mental illness is higher for people living in cities.

"The risk of schizophrenia doubled, anxiety and depression also increased, " Meyer-Lindenberg said. " The crux of the study is to show what is the link between urban life and stress and mental illness ," he said.

The researchers compared the brain activity of a group of volunteers living in urban or rural areas.

Volunteers are required to perform an arithmetic program on a computer, but they do not know that the program is stacked on top of each other, making it very difficult for them to achieve low scores. .

To increase stress, a character has the power to comment on their results, letting them know they are the worst performers and encouraging them to improve.

This situation causes " social stress " in which participants feel they do not meet social standards, Meyer-Lindenberg said.

Brightens the brain

This stress not only increases the heart rate of volunteers, blood pressure, the level of stress hormone in saliva, but also makes the amygdala, a part of the brain related to emotions, lights up. .

People who live in cities show the most activity in their amygdala, those who live in towns show less activity, and those who live in rural areas are at least.

According to Meyer-Lindenberg, " Almond almonds are dangerous centers of the brain and are closely related to anxiety and depression ."

Another area of ​​the brain shows that activity and activity correlate with how much the person has lived in the city. People with a childhood living in the city are more likely to see activity in the cingulate cortex.

" The belt is a control area related to solving negative events in life, " said Meyer-Lindenberg. ' The first stage of life is very stressful. It shows changes in early schizophrenia . "

The experiments were repeated three times and each time, the brain activity of the inhabitants of the city was more.

Urban life is not bad

" In 1950, only 30 percent of the world's population lived in urban areas; today it is more than 50 percent of us; by 2050, this number is expected to increase by nearly 70 percent , "According to Professor Ralph Adolphs and Dr. Daniel Kennedy of California Institute of Technology in a post commentary published with the issue of Nature magazine.

They say that this study shows a link, but it is uncertain about whether this is the cause of the other and therefore suggests that more research is needed to eliminate external factors. .

' For example, such studies can measure the position of individuals in a social hierarchy and frequency of meetings with strangers, as well as population density, spatial density and type. housing picture , "they wrote.

They also note that there are many positive aspects of living in the city.

" For example, in many countries, studies of the complex relationship between urban living and suicide show higher suicide rates than in rural areas compared to cities ."

" Although there may be some explanations for this, it may be related to a richer, more bustling and interactive social environment, a larger social support network, and more. access to health care is easier, "they write.