The Fundamentals of Environmental Neuroscience
Citation
Berman, M. G., & Bratman, G. N. (2024). The Fundamentals of Environmental Neuroscience. In Environmental Neuroscience (pp. 3-18). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-64699-7_1
This chapter introduces the field of environmental neuroscience, which studies how the places and surroundings we experience, especially natural environments, affect the human brain. The authors begin by explaining what environmental neuroscience is, how it developed as a scientific field, and what is meant by an environment. It also explores how environmental stimuli are processed and how they impact our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Lastly, the authors discuss some of the challenges facing environmental neuroscientists and how they might overcome them in the future.
Abstract
In this chapter, we explore the fundamentals of the field of environmental neuroscience. We start by defining the field of environmental neuroscience and then proceed to describing its roots and outlining some of its distinguishing features. We define what we mean by an environment, including those factors that are considered in this work, focus on the effects of natural environments, and note why many researchers do the same. We then discuss some of the mechanisms through which natural environments may affect brain processing through the perception of different visual and acoustic features and the centrality of attentional processes. We close by discussing some of the pitfalls and challenges that environmental neuroscientists face and how those challenges may be overcome in the future.