Stress and Streets

Can urban streets influence our brain activity related to stress processing?

2023/10/17

he recently published study by the research team of Prof. Martin Knöll from the Department of Architecture, TU Darmstadt, and Prof. Mazda Adli from the Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, confirms the association between the configuration of the street network in a 1.5 km radius neighbourhood and activation in several brain regions related to stress processing.

By analysing the neighbourhood street network of 42 individuals in Berlin based on the theory of space syntax, which considers a street network as a topological structure, network characteristics – global integration ('proximity' of a street to all other streets in a network), local integration ('proximity' of a street to a certain number of streets within a walkable area), and Connectivity ('direct street connections' a street has) and Normalised Angular Choice (NACH) ('straightest and shortest' route for a street in a street network) – were paired with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of subjects during acute social stress induction tasks. The results showed that high average neighbourhood-level integration, which indicates a neighbourhood where one can easily reach any points, was associated with less brain activation during stress provocation in several regions. The findings highlight the need to explore the potential of optimising street networks to better understand pathways to urban mental health.