Simone Kühn

Director of the Research Center for Environmental Neuroscience

Contact:
Susanne Kassung, Daniela Petrosino
Mail: sekkuehn@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
Telephone: +49 30 82406-261/262

Memberships and Service

Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Member, DFG-Network WAS (Wirkungsforschung in Architektur und Städtebau)
Member, Psychology Review Board, DFG
Fellow, German Institute for Economic Research (DIW)

Short CV:

Admittance to Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, 2005
Dipl. psych., Universität Potsdam, 2006
Dr. rer. nat., Universität Leipzig, 2009
Habilitation in Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2012
Heisenberg Professor, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (since 2016)
Leader, Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin (2019–2024)

Research Interests:

Environmental psychology
Environmental neuroscience
Behavioral and brain plasticity

Selected Literature:

Kühn, S. (Ed.). (2024). Environmental neuroscience. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-64699-7

Kühn, S., & Gallinat, J. (2024). Environmental neuroscience unravels the pathway from the physical environment to mental health. Nature Mental Health, 2, 263–269. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220- 023-00137-6

Pohlmann, K., Tawil, N., Brick, T. R. & Kühn, S. (2024). When houses wear faces: Reverse correlation applied to architectural design. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 98, 102401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102401

Doell, K. C., Berman, M. G., Bratman, G. N., Knutson, B. Kühn, S., Lamm, C., Pahl, S. et al. (2023). Leveraging neuroscience for climate change research. Nature Climate Change, 13 (1288–1297). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01857-4

Schiebel, T., Gallinat, J. & Kühn, S. (2022). Testing the Biophilia theory: Automatic approach tendencies towards nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 79, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101725

Stobbe, E., Sundermann, J., Ascone, L. & Kühn, S. (2022). Birdsongs alleviate anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants. Scientific Reports, 12, 16414. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20841-0

Sudimac, S., Sale, V. & Kühn, S. (2022). How nature nurtures: Amygdala activity decreases as the result of a one-hour walk in nature. Molecular Psychiatry, 27, 4446–4452. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-022-01720-6

Mascherek, A., Weber, S., Riebandt, K., Cassanello, C., Leicht, G., Brick, T., … Kühn, S. (2022). On the relation between a green and bright window view and length of hospital stay in affective disorders. European Psychiatry, 65(1), e21. https://doi:10.1192/j.eurpsy.2022.9

Mostajeran, F., Krzikawski, J., Steinicke, F. & Kühn, S. (2021). Effects of exposure to immersive videos and photo slideshows of forest and urban environments. Scientific Reports, 11, 3994. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83277-y

Ascone, L., Kling, C., Wieczorek, J., Koch, C., & Kühn, S. (2021). A longitudinal, randomized experimental pilot study to investigate the effects of airborne infrasound on human mental health, cognition, and brain structure. Scientific Reports, 11, Article 3190. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82203-6

Drewelies, J., Eibich, P., Düzel, S., Kühn, S., Krekel, C., Goebel, J., Kolbe, J., Demuth, I., Lindenberger, U., Wagner, G. G., & Gerstorf, D. (2021). Location, location, location: The role of objective neighborhood characteristics for perceptions of control. Gerontology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1159/000515634

Kühn, S., Butler, O., Willmund, G., Wesemann, U., Zimmermann, P., & Gallinat, J. (2021). The brain at war: Effects of stress on brain structure in soldiers deployed to a war zone. Translational Psychiatry, 11, Article 247. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01356-0

Kühn, S., Garcia Forlim, C., Lender, A., Wirtz, J., & Gallinat, J. (2021). Brain functional connectivity differs when viewing pictures from natural and built environments using fMRI resting state analysis. Scientific Reports, 11, Article 4110. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83246-5

Kühn, S., Banaschewski, T., Bokde, A. L. W., Büchel, C., Quinlan, E. B., Desrivières, S., Flor, H., Grigits, A., Garavan, H., Gowland, P., Heinz, A., Ittermann, B., Martinot, J.-L., Paillère Martinot, M. L., Nees, F., Papadopoulos Orfanos, D., Paus, T., Poustka, L., Millenet, S., Fröhner, J. H., Smolka, M. N., Walter, H., Whelan, R., Schumann, G., Meyer-Lindenberg, A., & Gallinat, J. (2020). Brain structure and habitat: Do the brains of our children tell us where they have been brought up? NeuroImage, 222, Article 117225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117225

Stahn, A. C., Gunga, H.-C., Kohlberg, E., Gallinat, J., Dinges, D. F., & Kühn, S. (2019). Brain changes in response to long-duration Antarctic expeditions. The New England Journal of Medicine, 381(23), 2273–2275. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc1904905