ArticleNature communications2025
Nature exposure induces analgesic effects by acting on nociception-related neural processing.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Spending time in a forest vs. a virtual forest simulation: qualitative and quantitative effects on stress perception and psychological wellbeing in a randomized cross-over trial of highly sensitive persons.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Trial
- The mediating role of environmental restorativeness between vegetation levels and physical activity intention: a photo-based experimental study.Frontiers in public health · 2025Trial
- Chronic Pain in Older Adults: Risk Factors and Prevention.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Brief virtual nature exposure and acute stress: inconclusive evidence regarding stress reactivity, recovery, and emotion regulation.Journal of environmental psychology · 2026Article
- Prediction, pain, and the power of context: toward a contemporary identity for the chiropractic profession.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2026Review
- Impact of a Standardised Screening on the Assessment and Addressing of Spiritual Needs in Inpatient Palliative Care in Germany: A Mixed-Methods Study.Journal of religion and health · 2026Article
- Stress recovery effects of visual exposure to bamboo landscapes in urban parks: Evidence from physiological and psychological responses.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Mimetic Core-Sheath Silk Sutures with Superior-Strength for Pain Management, Anti-Infection and Wound Healing.Advanced healthcare materials · 2026Article
- Translational value of understanding brain-spinal interactions in persistent pain.Neural regeneration research · 2026Article
- Testing nature-based biopsychosocial resilience theory: a research programme protocol.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- A critical role of affective content in the analgesic effect of virtual reality: a cross-sectional within-subject study.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2026Article
- Industrial robots and worker health in China: evidence on sectoral heterogeneity and institutional moderation.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- More trees, more naturalness, and greater willingness to engage in physical activity: an image-based study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Associations between perceived natural environmental features and physical activity intention: the mediating roles of perceived safety and perceived environmental restorativeness.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Nature exposure reduces self-reported pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- The mediating role of empathy between nature connectedness and social-emotional competence among upper-grade Yi ethnic minority pupils in rural Southwest China.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Therapist-Guided Versus Self-Guided Forest Immersion: Comparative Efficacy on Short-Term Mental Health and Economic Value.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Neuroscience and climate action: intersecting pathways for brain and planetary health.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Nature exposure has numerous health benefits and might reduce self-reported acute pain. Given the multi-faceted and subjective quality of pain and methodological limitations of prior research, it is unclear whether the evidence indicates genuine analgesic effects or results from domain-general effects and subjective reporting biases. This preregistered neuroimaging study investigates how nature modulates nociception-related and domain-general brain responses to acute pain. Healthy participants (N = 49) receiving electrical shocks report lower pain when exposed to virtual nature compared to matched urban or indoor control settings. Multi-voxel signatures of pain-related brain activation patterns demonstrate that this subjective analgesic effect is associated with reductions in nociception-related rather than domain-general cognitive-emotional neural pain processing. Preregistered region-of-interest analyses corroborate these results, highlighting reduced activation of areas connected to somatosensory aspects of pain processing (thalamus, secondary somatosensory cortex, and posterior insula). These findings demonstrate that virtual nature exposure enables genuine analgesic effects through changes in nociceptive and somatosensory processing, advancing our understanding of how nature may be used to complement non-pharmacological pain treatment. That this analgesic effect can be achieved with easy-to-administer virtual nature exposure has important practical implications and opens novel avenues for research on the precise mechanisms by which nature impacts our mind and brain.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.