Living Near A Forest Is Linked To Better Brain Health

25 October 2017

 - As images of the still-burning Northern California wildfires confirm, living on the edge of a forest comes with considerable dangers. But new research from Germany suggests proximity to a wooded landscape may also have a huge benefit.

In a study of older urban dwellers, it found living in close proximity to forest land is linked with strong, healthy functioning of a key part of the brain. This indicates that, compared with those who live in a mostly man-made environment, people who dwell on the border between city and forest may be better able to cope with stress.

The findings suggest “forests in and around cities are a valuable resource that should be promoted,” writes a research team led by Simone Kuehn of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Its research is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The researchers analyzed data on 341 participants in the Berlin Aging Study II, all of whom lived in the city and were between the ages of 61 and 82. They specifically looked at “three different indicators of brain structural integrity,” each of which provided “distinct information” on several key brain regions.