Khalil Mohamed Hesham, Steemers Koen
Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PX, UK.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2024 Nov 25;21(12):1553. doi: 10.3390/ijerph21121553.
In response to the rising mental health concerns and cognitive decline associated with the human brain's neurogenesis, which continues until the tenth decade of life but declines with age and is suppressed by poor environments, this pilot study investigates how physical environments may influence public health proxy measures of neurogenesis in humans. This pilot study focuses on the residential environment where people spend most of their time and age in place, exploring the dependency of depression, anxiety, and cognitive impairment variations on spatial and lifestyle variables.
A total of 142 healthy adults in England completed a survey consisting of PHQ-8, GAD-7, and CFI questionnaires and other questions developed to capture the variance in spatial and lifestyle factors such as time spent at home, house type layout complexity, spaciousness, physical activity, routine and spatial novelty, and perceived loneliness.
Extensive time spent at home has adverse effects on all measures, while multi-storey houses perform better than single-story houses with positive correlations with physical activity and spatial novelty. Separate regression models on the variance in depression, as the most salient dependent variable and reliably associated with neurogenesis, reveal that getting out of the house explains 20.5% of the variance in depression symptoms. At the scale of the house, multi-storey houses explain 16.5% of the variance. Both percentages are closer to the effect of loneliness, which we found to explain 26.6% of the variance in depression.
The built environment appears to be significantly associated with changes in cognitive function and mental health symptoms associated with neurogenesis. This pilot study shows the equally important effect of physical and social enrichment, offering critically needed insights for neuroarchitecture and brain health research that is interested in public health.
随着人们对心理健康问题以及与人类大脑神经发生相关的认知衰退的关注度不断提高，神经发生在生命的第十个十年之前一直持续，但会随着年龄增长而下降，并受到不良环境的抑制。这项试点研究调查了物理环境如何影响人类神经发生的公共卫生替代指标。这项试点研究聚焦于人们大部分时间生活和变老的居住环境，探讨抑郁、焦虑和认知障碍变化对空间和生活方式变量的依赖性。
英格兰的142名健康成年人完成了一项调查，该调查包括PHQ - 8、GAD - 7和CFI问卷，以及为捕捉空间和生活方式因素（如在家时间、房屋类型布局复杂性、宽敞度、身体活动、日常和空间新奇感以及感知到的孤独感）的差异而设计的其他问题。
在家长时间停留对所有指标都有不利影响，而多层房屋的表现优于单层房屋，与身体活动和空间新奇感呈正相关。以抑郁差异作为最显著的因变量且与神经发生可靠相关的单独回归模型显示，走出家门可解释抑郁症状差异的20.5%。在房屋尺度上，多层房屋可解释16.5%的差异。这两个百分比都更接近孤独感的影响，我们发现孤独感可解释抑郁差异的26.6%。
建筑环境似乎与认知功能变化以及与神经发生相关的心理健康症状显著相关。这项试点研究显示了物质和社会丰富的同等重要作用，为关注公共卫生的神经建筑学和大脑健康研究提供了急需的见解。
