Nature & Nurture #68: Dr. Kim Meidenbauer - Environmental Neuroscience & Social Cognition

Dr. Kim Meidenbauer is a social, cognitive, and environmental neuroscientist, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Chicago, and incoming Assistant Professor at Washington State University. Her research focuses on how the physical environment influences brain development, and in turn, our cognition, emotion, and social behavior.   

In this episode we talk about Kim’s research on how physical environmental stressors, such as heat exposure, influence our brains and predict social behavior, including crime rates. Additionally, we talk about the positive effects of greenspace, spending time in nature, on development and mental health, and how these effects can be measured using data gathered from smartphones and social media posts.   We talk about the question of free will: how free are we really, if our brains and behaviors are shaped by environmental and genetic influences? Lastly, we talk about the important policy implications of Kim’s research, especially as climate change accelerates and as we become more aware of the influence of the physical environment on our mental well-being.