14 DAY TRIAL // In a new study, investigators have determined that a clear correlation exits between living in urban areas and the lifelong risk people doing so have of developing mood disorders or anxiety.
In other words, city life has been found to exert a clear influence on nerve, emotion and stress centers in the brain, subjecting humans to a type of pressure that was never before encountered in our history.
Using data collected from studies such as this one could lead to the development of new and improved public health strategies that would contribute greatly to improving city dwellers' quality of life.
The new investigation was carried out by an international team of scientists, which also included Douglas Mental Health University Institute expert Jens Pruessner, PhD. The researcher was also a co-author of the new investigation.
The study was funded by the Seventh Framework Program of the European Community, the German Research Foundation, and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, also in Germany.
Douglas investigators worked together with colleagues at the Central Institute of Mental Health, in Mannheim, Germany, on this research.
“Previous findings have shown that the risk for anxiety disorders is 21 percent higher for people from the city, who also have a 39 percent increase for mood disorders,” Pruessner explains.
“In addition, the incidence for schizophrenia is almost doubled for individuals who are born and brought up in cities. These values are a cause for concern and determining the biology behind this is the first step to remedy the trend,” he adds.
In order to test their hypothesis, the experts recruited healthy volunteers from urban and rural areas, and used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study their brain activity patterns, PsychCentral reports
An area of the brain involved with emotional regulation and mood, known as the amygdala, was found to be significantly more active in city dwellers than in those living in rural areas.
“These findings suggest that different brain regions are sensitive to the experience of city living during different times across the lifespan. Future studies need to clarify the link between psychopathology and these affects in individuals with mental disorders,” Pruessner comments.
“These findings contribute to our understanding of urban environmental risk for mental disorders and health in general. They further point to a new approach to interface social sciences, neurosciences and public policy to respond to the major health challenge of urbanization,” he concludes.