A hat tip to Nicole Black (lawyer, author & legal tech evangelist) for the link.

A FYI for those of you contemplating an urban life style it seems there are mental and physical costs to living in those places where there’s a Starbucks on every corner. In the latest Scientific American Mind, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg reports on the mounting evidence that urban living can alter brain physiology.

It seems that folks from cities of 100,000 or more have more activity in their amygdala (the part of the brain that reacts to environmental threats – back in caveman times these would have been things like lions, tigers, and bears – oh my!) than their county counterparts (those from towns of 10,000 or less). There also seems to be a correlation between the time one lives in a city and amygdala activity – the longer one lives a city, the more activity. Now, correlation does not equate to causation and Dr. Meyer-Lindenberg says that this study does not indicate why city living would cause an increase in brain activity.

In any event, it is food for thought.