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Social neuroscience

Stress and the city

Nature volume 474, pages 452–453 (2011)Cite this article

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Many of us were raised or currently live in an urban environment. A neuroimaging study now reveals how this affects brain function when an individual is faced with a stressful situation. See Letter p.498

Of the activated brain regions, two were of particular interest: activation in the amygdala correlated with the size of the city in which an individual currently resided, and activation of the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) correlated with how long a participant had lived in a large city during their childhood. Urban upbringing also affected the strength of the functional coupling between the amygdala and the pACC: those who had spent more time growing up in large cities had reduced functional connectivity between these two regions.

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Figure 1: The city allure.
Figure 2: Regional categories.

PHOTOLIBRARY.COM; A, R. TOMLINSON; B, S. GRANDADAM; C, EYE UBIQUITOU

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Daniel P. Kennedy and Ralph Adolphs are at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.,

    Daniel P. Kennedy & Ralph Adolphs

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  1. Daniel P. Kennedy
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  2. Ralph Adolphs
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Correspondence to Ralph Adolphs.

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Kennedy, D., Adolphs, R. Stress and the city. Nature 474, 452–453 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/474452a

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