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Increasingly, the world's population is concentrated in urban areas. Many researchers have found that those who live in cities have higher rates of anxiety and mood disorders than do those who live in rural areas; in addition, rates of schizophrenia are nearly double among people raised in cities.
German investigators searched for objective evidence that city living affects the brain. Healthy young adults who were raised, or currently live, in urban or in rural areas were enrolled; they performed two types of arithmetic tests under imposed social stress (being told during testing that they were performing poorly) and another cognitive test while under no social stress. During testing, brain activation was measured by functional magnetic reso…