Children Living Amidst Greenery Are More Attentive And Have A Better Working Memory

Parks and playgrounds have always been a quintessential part of our childhood; whether for play or just to connect to nature and disconnect from the urban jungle we live in. But did you know living in a green neighbourhood can positively impact the development of the brain of a child, not just their bodies??

Children growing up amidst greenery are more attentive and have a better working memory, revealed a recent study published in the journal Environment Health Perspectives.?

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Primary school children who have been raised in homes surrounded by more green space tend to have larger volumes of white and grey matter in certain areas of the brain, said the researcher team from Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) in Spain.?

The team found that children with higher greenness around their homes had better scores in the attention tests."These results underline the importance of green areas in cities for children's health and brain development," said Payam Dadvand, a researcher at ISGlobal.

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"This is the first study that evaluates the association between long-term exposure to green space and brain structure," claimed Dadvand.

"Our findings suggest that exposure to green space early in life could result in beneficial structural changes in the brain," he added.

Previous studies have already indicated that green spaces within and surrounding schools could enhance cognitive development in children between seven and 10 years of age.

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The data analysis showed that long-term exposure to greenness was positively associated with white and grey matter volume in some parts of the brain that partly overlapped with those associated with higher scores on cognitive tests.

Furthermore, greener areas often have lower levels of air pollution and noise and may enrich microbial inputs from the environment, all of which could translate into indirect benefits for brain development.