Nature Exposure Reduces Acute Pain by Modulating Nociceptive Brain Processing

A growing body of research highlights the health benefits of nature exposure, including its potential to reduce pain. Now, a new neuroimaging study published in Nature Communications provides compelling evidence that viewing natural environments—even in virtual form—can lead to genuine analgesic effects. Unlike placebo-induced pain relief, which primarily influences cognitive-emotional processing, this study shows that nature exposure directly modulates pain at the sensory level by altering nociceptive brain activity.

What’s New? A Rigorous Neuroimaging Approach

To explore how nature affects pain processing, researchers conducted a preregistered functional MRI (fMRI) study with 49 healthy participants. Each participant received electrical shocks while viewing one of three environments: a virtual natural scene, an urban setting, or an indoor control condition. Compared to the urban and indoor conditions, participants exposed to virtual nature reported lower pain intensity and unpleasantness.

Beyond self-reported pain reduction, neuroimaging data revealed that nature exposure significantly reduced activity in nociception-related brain regions, including the thalamus, secondary somatosensory cortex (S2), and posterior insula (pINS). These areas are responsible for processing the sensory-discriminative aspects of pain, meaning the pain relief experienced was likely due to genuine changes in sensory processing rather than cognitive distraction or emotional regulation.

Why It Matters: Potential for Non-Pharmacological Pain Management

The findings suggest that nature exposure could serve as a non-pharmacological approach to pain management. Unlike placebo treatments, which affect higher-level cognitive-emotional processes, nature appears to act on nociceptive pathways, directly reducing pain signals at the neural level.

Importantly, this study demonstrates that even virtual nature exposure can induce analgesic effects, offering potential applications for digital health interventions. Future research could explore how nature-based therapies, including virtual reality nature experiences, might complement existing pain management strategies in clinical and therapeutic settings.

Source:

Steininger, Maximilian O, Mathew P White, Lukas Lengersdorff, Lei Zhang, Alexander J Smalley, Simone Kühn, and Claus Lamm. 2025. “Nature Exposure Induces Analgesic Effects by Acting on Nociception-Related Neural Processing.” Nature Communications 16 (1): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56870-2.