A study published today in the journalNature reveals that people who haveborn and raised in urban areasthey have aincreased risk of anxiety and stress disorders. Research reveals that city life negatively affects two brain regions that regulate emotions.
Previous research indicated that “the risk of suffering from anxiety is 21% higher for those who live in cities, who also have a 39% increase in the incidence of mood disorders,” according to Jens Pruessner, member of the University Institute of Mental Health Douglas from Canada and a co-author of the study. Furthermore, lhe incidence of schizophrenia doubles for those who were born and live in large cities.
To reach this conclusion, Pruessner and his colleagues studied the brain activity of healthy volunteers from urban and rural areas usingfunctional magnetic resonance imaging. In this way, they verified that urban life is associated with a greater response to stress in theamygdala, a brain region linked to the regulation of emotions and mood. Specifically, the researchers found that volunteers in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants revealed greater amygdala activity than those with more than 10,000, and these in turn more than people in rural areas. On the other hand, growing up and educating oneself in an urban environment is associated with the activity of thecingulate cortex, a key region for the regulation of amygdala activity, negative emotions and stress.
? These experiments suggest that different regions of the brain are sensitive to the experience of living in a city at different stages of life ?, explains Pruessne.
