Ancora Leonardo A, Blanco-Mora Diego Andrés, Alves Inês, Bonifácio Ana, Morgado Paulo, Miranda Bruno
Institute of Physiology, Lisbon School of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
Institute of Molecular Medicine, Lisbon School of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
Front Psychiatry. 2022 Nov 10;13:983352. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.983352. eCollection 2022.
Cities 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 as a framework to achieve healthier and sustainable cities.
By 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.
Sixty-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.
Contemporary 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.
城市正成为世界上大多数人口的社会经济中心。了解我们的周围环境如何在心理上影响日常生活，对于将环境可持续性纳入城市发展至关重要。本综述旨在探索实证研究，这些研究调查了接触不同城市建成空间和自然空间所引发的认知和情感过程背后的神经机制。它还试图识别新的研究问题，并将其作为一个框架来实现更健康、可持续的城市。
按照PRISMA框架，我们在PubMed、ProQuest、Web of Science和Scopus数据库中进行了结构化搜索。仅考虑与城市环境（建成环境或自然环境）如何通过客观测量（使用成像或电生理技术）影响大脑活动相关的文章。进一步的纳入标准是针对成年人群体的研究、经过同行评审且为英文。
62篇文章符合纳入标准。对它们进行了定性评估和分析，以确定主要发现和新兴概念。总体而言，结果表明，与自然空间相比，接触城市建成环境会引发大脑区域或网络的激活，这些区域或网络与感知、注意力和（空间）认知需求密切相关。城市的建成环境还会触发与压力和负面影响相关的神经回路。在神经科学技术以及实验室和现实生活环境中均观察到了这些发现的趋同性。此外，证据还表明神经社会应激处理与城市成长经历或当前城市生活之间存在关联，这表明与某些情绪和焦虑障碍存在机制联系。最后，发现环境多样性对积极情绪和个人幸福感至关重要。
当代人类与环境的相互作用以及全球性挑战意味着需要更深入地了解城市空间如何影响认知和情感的神经学基础。本综述提供了可应用于改善城市心理健康政策制定的科学证据。多项研究表明，高质量的绿色或蓝色空间以及生物多样性丰富的城市区域，是积极神经、认知和情感过程的重要助力。尽管如此，城市规划者和科学家应进一步关注社会背景下的空间感知（例如城市过度拥挤）。讨论了这些观察结果对环境心理学和研究中一些理论的影响。未来的工作应利用技术进步来更好地描述行为、大脑生理学和环境因素，并将其应用于当代城市的其余复杂性问题。
