title: Enhanced functional connectivity properties of human brains during in-situ nature experience.
abstract: In this study, we investigated the impacts of in-situ nature and urban exposure on human brain activities and their dynamics. We randomly assigned 32 healthy right-handed college students (mean age = 20.6 years, SD = 1.6; 16 males) to a 20 min in-situ sitting exposure in either a nature (n = 16) or urban environment (n = 16) and measured their Electroencephalography (EEG) signals. Analyses revealed that a brief in-situ restorative nature experience may induce more efficient and stronger brain connectivity with enhanced small-world properties compared with a stressful urban experience. The enhanced small-world properties were found to be correlated with "coherent" experience measured by Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS). Exposure to nature also induces stronger long-term correlated activity across different brain regions with a right lateralization. These findings may advance our understanding of the functional activities during in-situ environmental exposures and imply that a nature or nature-like environment may potentially benefit cognitive processes and mental well-being.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ecology and Energy-Saving Study of Dense Habitat, Department of Landscape Studies, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: The State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and Institutes of Brain Science, School of Life Science and the Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Center for Computational Systems Biology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Yujia
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: The State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and Institutes of Brain Science, School of Life Science and the Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Center for Computational Systems Biology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Yuguo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yu
keywords: 1/f statistics; Environmental neuroscience; Functional connectivity; Nature experience; Small-world network