Background This study aimed to explore whether walking in nature may be beneficial for individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). Healthy adults demonstrate significant cognitive gains after nature walks, but it was unclear whether those same benefits would be achieved in a depressed sample as walking alone in nature might induce rumination, thereby worsening memory and mood. Methods Twenty individuals diagnosed with MDD participated in this study. At baseline, mood and short term memory span were assessed using the PANAS and the backwards digit span (BDS) task, respectively. Participants were then asked to think about an unresolved negative autobiographical event to prime rumination, prior to taking a 50 minute walk in either a natural or urban setting. After the walk, mood and short-term memory span were reassessed. The following week, participants returned to the lab and repeated the entire procedure, but walked in the location not visited in the first session (i.e., a counterbalanced within-subjects design). Results Participants exhibited significant increases in memory span after the nature walk relative to the urban walk, p < .001, ηp2= .53 (a large effect-size). Participants also showed increases in mood, but the mood effects did not correlate with the memory effects, suggesting separable mechanisms and replicating previous work. Limitations Sample size and participants’ motivation. Conclusions These findings extend earlier work demonstrating the cognitive and affective benefits of interacting with nature to individuals with MDD. Therefore, interacting with nature may be useful clinically as a supplement to existing treatments for MDD.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between executive function and coping at one-year-post traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI and matched control groups completed a coping questionnaire and a neuropsychological test series. In the TBI group, better executive performance was related to the use of problem focused coping (considered more adaptive). Conversely, lower executive performance was related to the use of emotion focused coping (considered more maladaptive). Planned hierarchical regression showed that executive function contributed significantly to the use of problem focused coping above and beyond pre-morbid intelligence and injury severity. Implications for cognitive rehabilitation are discussed.

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