Are We Wired to Be Outside?
Hiking the Franconia Ridge Loop is an intimidating proposition. The trail, in the heart of New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest, is close to 9 miles long, and peaks at over 5,000 feet above sea level. The ridge connects several of New Hampshire’s highest peaks and offers stunning views of the surrounding mountains. The ridge itself is a ragged, narrow path flanked by alpine tundra, with low-standing bushes and virtually no trees.
My partner and I found ourselves on the Franconia trail on a recent Sunday morning, our backpacks full of trail mix, sandwiches, and hot tea, our minds ready to take on the arduous hike. We entered the forest and discovered a path covered on all sides with beech, birch, and fir trees. Ferns littered the forest floor, while moss covered downed trees like a short but scraggly beard. The path zigzagged across streams and waterfalls. Tree roots and boulders—some as small as sneakers, others as big as cars—hogged the trail unapologetically. The path appeared to ascend into infinity, like the Penrose stairs.
The hike was a welcome escape from the city, and as we walked, the conversation turned to the power of nature. Walking through a forest, climbing a mountain, watching ocean waves: These activities have for millennia awakened something raw in humans. Even as we collectively barrel toward destruction of nature, humans seem to have an innate connection to it. It’s a connection that deepens when we consider the magnitude and irreversibility of extinction. But what’s the essence of that connection? What happens in a human brain during a walk through a forest, when watching the mesmerizing licks of a campfire or the undulations and ripples of rapids in a stream?
As a neuroscientist, I spend my days thinking about how brains orchestrate behavior and synthesize perception. I ask questions about how brain cells allow us to experience the world and set up laboratory experiments to answer them. A number of basic questions crossed my mind as we scrambled up the path. How do our legs adapt from walking on a paved road to scrambling up rocks? Animals have no trouble but few machines are this acrobatic. How do our eyes lock on to the optimal path across the jagged terrain? Machines struggle with visual recognition, too, while humans and other animals do not. Even more intriguing are the wondrous effects nature has on our emotional states. How does one begin to
