Nature Scenes Disrupt Pain Signals in the Brain

Scientists use MRI brain scans to show how watching nature videos changes the brain’s processing of pain.

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Watching videos or scenes of untouched forests, cascading waterfalls, and tranquil beaches does more than evoke positive feelings—it can significantly alleviate pain at a neural level, reducing pain perception, a new study has found.

“Our findings suggest that the pain-relieving effect of nature is genuine, although the effect we found was significantly less than that of painkillers,” lead author Max Steininger from the University of Vienna said in a statement.

Nondrug Treatment for Pain

The study, recently published in the journal Nature Communications and conducted by a team from the University of Vienna in Austria and the University of Exeter in the UK, used MRI scans to analyze brain networks related to pain.