HSE Researchers Experimentally Demonstrate Positive Effects of Urban Parks on the Brain
Scientists at HSE University have investigated the effect of parks on the cognitive and emotional resources of city dwellers. The researchers compared brain electrical activity in 30 participants while they watched videos of walks through parks and along busy highways. The results showed that green urban environments with trees produce a consistent effect across individuals, helping the brain calm down and relax. By contrast, walks along busy streets were found to be distracting. The findings have been published in Scientific Reports.
The more greenery people are surrounded by, the better they tend to feel. Previous studies have shown that adding just ten more trees to a city neighbourhood can make residents feel several years younger. However, scientists continue to investigate the underlying reasons for the positive effects of green urban environments.
Researchers at the HSE International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology have examined the impact of green urban spaces on human cognitive resources. For the first time in this type of study, electroencephalography (EEG) was combined with inter-subject correlation analysis, enabling comparison of EEG data across participants and the identification of brain-to-brain synchrony—that is, shared patterns of neural activity observed while participants watched a long video of a city walk.
The researchers recorded videos of walks along highways, boulevards, and through city parks in various districts of Moscow and St Petersburg. Thirty volunteers then watched these videos while their brain activity was recorded using EEG. The researchers compared participants’ neural responses to walks through parks and along busy highways. When the participants were similarly engaged with the scenes, their brain activity exhibited common patterns.
The results revealed that participants’ brains responded in a similar way to walks in parks, with synchrony observed in the delta frequency band—the slowest brain-wave rhythm. Delta activity is associated with the brain’s oldest structures and indicates relaxation, restoration, and a restful state.
During video walks along busy highways, the opposite effect was observed. The researchers found little to no synchrony in participants’ brain electrical activity, reflecting constant distraction and attentional overload.
Vasily Klucharev
'This result was unexpected for us. We had assumed that people would "read" the city like a book, paying attention to the same details—such as signs, landscapes, and buildings. However, it turned out that attention in urban streets is more likely to be scattered, with no universal pattern of environmental perception, as the city distracts each individual in a different way,' explains Vasily Klucharev, Head of the International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology at HSE University.
The study highlights the importance of planting more trees in cities and of creating, preserving, and expanding green spaces, including parks and urban forests, in megacities.
Nadezhda Kerimova
'Large green spaces—such as urban parks and forest parks—can trigger universal cognitive processes in the brain associated with motivation and positive emotions,' comments Nadezhda Kerimova, Head of Neurourbanism Research at the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience.
The authors of the article are the first in Russia to launch a series of studies in neurourbanism aimed at exploring how urban environments influence the brain.
'We want not only to live a long life but also to maintain a sound mind and body, which requires special therapeutic qualities in the urban environment that help the brain recover from constant stress,' says Vasily Klucharev.
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HSE Experts Reveal Low Accuracy of Technology Forecasts in Transportation
HSE researchers evaluated the accuracy of technology forecasts in the transportation sector over the past 50 years and found that the average accuracy rate does not exceed 25%, with the lowest accuracy observed in aviation and rail transport. According to the scientists, this is due to limitations of the forecasting method and the inherent complexities of the sector. The study findings have been published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
Wearable Device Data and Saliva Biomarkers Help Assess Stress Resilience
A team of scientists, including researchers from HSE University, has proposed a method for assessing stress resilience using physiological markers derived from wearable devices and saliva samples. The participants who adapted better to stress showed higher heart rate variability, higher zinc concentrations in saliva, and lower potassium levels. The findings were published in the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience.
HSE Unveils Anthropomorphic Courier Robot
From April 1 to 3, 2026, the Fourth Robotics Festival took place, with the HSE Faculty of Computer Science acting as the main organiser. The event featured the presentation of the anthropomorphic courier robot Arkus. The humanoid was introduced by the Institute for Robotic Systems, established jointly by HSE University and the EFKO Group of Companies.
When Circumstances Are Stronger Than Habits: How Financial Stress Affects Smoking Cessation
HSE researchers have found that the likelihood of quitting smoking rises with increasing financial struggles. While low levels of financial difficulties do not affect smoking behaviour, moderate financial stress can increase the probability of quitting by 13% to 21%. Responses to high financial stress differ by gender: men are almost 1.5 times more likely to give up cigarettes than under normal conditions, whereas no significant effect is observed on women’s decisions to quit smoking. These conclusions are based on data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) for 2000–2023 and have been published in Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes.
HSE Researchers Propose New Method of Verbal Fluency Analysis for Early Detection of Cognitive Impairment
Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain and the Mental Health Research Centre have proposed a new method of linguistic analysis that enables the distinction between normal and pathological ageing. Using this approach, they showed that patterns in patients’ word choices during verbal fluency tests allow clinicians to more accurately differentiate clinically significant impairments from subjective memory complaints. Incorporating this type of analysis into clinical practice could improve the accuracy of early dementia diagnosis. The results have been published in Applied Neuropsychology: Adult.
How the Brain Processes a Word: HSE Researchers Compare Reading Routes in Adults and Children
Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain used magnetoencephalography to study how the brains of adults and children respond to words during reading. They showed that in children the brain takes longer to process words that are frequently used in everyday speech, while rare words and pseudowords are processed in the same way—slowly and in parts. With age, the system is reorganised: high-frequency words shift to a fast route, whereas new letter combinations are still analysed slowly. The study was published in the journal Psychophysiology.
From Spins and Two-Dimensional Materials to Tsunamis and Tornadoes: What HSE Physicists Study
The Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics studies highly complex processes of interaction between molecules and atoms in solids and liquids, the quantum mechanics of these processes, and ultra-thin two-dimensional materials. HSE physicists, together with colleagues from leading academic institutes, investigate the properties of superconductors and topological materials, phenomena at ultra-low temperatures, as well as problems of turbulence and hydrodynamics.
How Neural Networks Detect and Interpret Wordplay: New Insights from HSE Researchers
An international team including researchers from the HSE Faculty of Computer Science has presented KoWit-24, an annotated dataset of 2,700 Russian-language Kommersant news headlines containing wordplay. The dataset enables an assessment of how artificial intelligence detects and interprets wordplay. Experiments with five large language models show that even advanced systems still make mistakes, and that interpreting wordplay is more challenging for them than detecting it. The results were presented at the RANLP conference; the paper is available on Arxiv.org, and the dataset and the code for reproducing the experiments are available on GitHub.
HSE Economists Find That Auction Prices Depend on Artist’s Life Story
Researchers from the Centre for Big Data in Economics and Finance at the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences have found that facts from an artist’s life are statistically significant in pricing a painting, alongside such traditional characteristics as the material, the size of the canvas, or the presence of the artist’s signature. This conclusion is based on an analysis of prices for 15,000 works by 158 artists sold since 1999 by the major auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s. The article has been published in the journal Empirical Studies of the Arts.
HSE Physicists Propose Unified Theory for Describing Electric Double Layer
To develop more efficient batteries and catalysts, it is essential to understand the processes occurring at the metal–solution interface in the electric double layer (EDL). Physicists at HSE MIEM have proposed a unified theoretical model of the EDL that simultaneously accounts for selective adsorption of ions on the surface and partial charge transfer between ions and the metal—phenomena that had previously been described separately. The model’s predictions are consistent with experimental data. In the future, it may be used in the development of batteries, supercapacitors, and catalysts. The study has been published in Electrochimica Acta.