During their ordeal, volunteers currently living in a city of more than 100 000 experienced more activation of the amygdala, which processes emotion, than those living in a town or rural area. Activity in the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, which helps regulate the amygdala and processes negative emotions, depended on where the volunteers grew up (before age 15 years), increasing with the number of years of city living. Follow-up experiments confirmed these effects but only when the volunteers were criticized while doing the tasks, suggesting that the brain effects were the result of social stress rather than the task itself.
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