Cultural neuroscience
Encyclopedia
Cultural neuroscience is the study of how cultural
values, practices and beliefs shape and are shaped by the mind
, brain
and gene
s across multiple timescales. The study of cultural neuroscience bridges theory and methods from anthropology
, psychology
, neuroscience
and genetics. Cultural neuroscientists study cultural variation in mental, neural and genomic processes as a means of articulating the bidirectional relationship of these processes and their emergent properties
using a variety of methods. Researchers in cultural neuroscience are motivated by two fundamentally intriguing, yet still unanswered, questions on the origins of human nature
and human diversity: how do cultural traits (e.g., values, beliefs, practices) shape neurobiology (e.g., genetic and neural processes) and behavior and how do neurobiological mechanisms (e.g., genetic and neural processes) facilitate the emergence and transmission of cultural traits?
The idea that complex behavior results from the dynamic interaction of genes and cultural environment is not new; however, cultural neuroscience represents a novel empirical approach to demonstrating bidirectional interactions between culture and biology by integrating theory and methods from cultural psychology, neuroscience and neurogenetics.
Similar to other interdisciplinary fields such as social neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, affective neuroscience, and neuroanthropology, cultural neuroscience aims to explain a given mental phenomenon in terms of a synergistic product of mental, neural and genetic events. In particular, cultural neuroscience shares common research goals with social neuroscientists examining how neurobiological mechanisms (e.g., mirror neurons), facilitate cultural transmission, (e.g., imitative learning) and neuroanthropologists examining how embedded culture, as captured by cross-species comparison and ethnography, is related to brain function. Cultural neuroscience also shares intellectual goals with critical neuroscience, a field of inquiry that scrutinizes the social, cultural, economic and political contexts and assumptions that underlie behavioral and brain science
research as it is practiced today.
Cultural neuroscience is unique in that it primarily adopts the experimental methods of cultural psychology and models of dual inheritance theory as the means to uncovering how mental, neural and genetic events vary as a function of specific culture traits (e.g., values, practices and beliefs) in some meaningful way. Research in cultural neuroscience has practical relevance to transcultural psychiatry, business and technology as well as broader implications for global public policy
issues such as population health
disparities, bioethics, globalization, immigration, interethnic ideology and international relations.
Reviews
Articles
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
values, practices and beliefs shape and are shaped by the mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
, brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
and gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
s across multiple timescales. The study of cultural neuroscience bridges theory and methods from anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
and genetics. Cultural neuroscientists study cultural variation in mental, neural and genomic processes as a means of articulating the bidirectional relationship of these processes and their emergent properties
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
using a variety of methods. Researchers in cultural neuroscience are motivated by two fundamentally intriguing, yet still unanswered, questions on the origins of human nature
Human nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....
and human diversity: how do cultural traits (e.g., values, beliefs, practices) shape neurobiology (e.g., genetic and neural processes) and behavior and how do neurobiological mechanisms (e.g., genetic and neural processes) facilitate the emergence and transmission of cultural traits?
The idea that complex behavior results from the dynamic interaction of genes and cultural environment is not new; however, cultural neuroscience represents a novel empirical approach to demonstrating bidirectional interactions between culture and biology by integrating theory and methods from cultural psychology, neuroscience and neurogenetics.
Similar to other interdisciplinary fields such as social neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, affective neuroscience, and neuroanthropology, cultural neuroscience aims to explain a given mental phenomenon in terms of a synergistic product of mental, neural and genetic events. In particular, cultural neuroscience shares common research goals with social neuroscientists examining how neurobiological mechanisms (e.g., mirror neurons), facilitate cultural transmission, (e.g., imitative learning) and neuroanthropologists examining how embedded culture, as captured by cross-species comparison and ethnography, is related to brain function. Cultural neuroscience also shares intellectual goals with critical neuroscience, a field of inquiry that scrutinizes the social, cultural, economic and political contexts and assumptions that underlie behavioral and brain science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
research as it is practiced today.
Cultural neuroscience is unique in that it primarily adopts the experimental methods of cultural psychology and models of dual inheritance theory as the means to uncovering how mental, neural and genetic events vary as a function of specific culture traits (e.g., values, practices and beliefs) in some meaningful way. Research in cultural neuroscience has practical relevance to transcultural psychiatry, business and technology as well as broader implications for global public policy
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
issues such as population health
Population health
Population health has been defined as “the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group.” It is an approach to health that aims to improve the health of an entire population. One major step in achieving this aim is to reduce health...
disparities, bioethics, globalization, immigration, interethnic ideology and international relations.
See also
- Affective neuroscienceAffective neuroscienceAffective neuroscience is the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood.-Brain areas related to emotion:...
- Cognitive neuroscienceCognitive neuroscienceCognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...
- Cross-cultural psychiatryCross-cultural psychiatryCross-cultural psychiatry or transcultural psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry concerned with the cultural and ethnic context of mental disorders and psychiatric services...
- Cultural psychologyCultural psychologyCultural psychology is a field of psychology which assumes the idea that culture and mind are inseparable, and that psychological theories grounded in one culture are likely to be limited in applicability when applied to a different culture...
- Dual Inheritance TheoryDual inheritance theoryDual inheritance theory , also known as gene-culture coevolution, was developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s to explain how human behavior is a product of two different and interacting evolutionary processes: genetic evolution and cultural evolution...
- Epigenesis (biology)Epigenesis (biology)In biology, epigenesis has at least two distinct meanings:* the unfolding development in an organism, and in particular the development of a plant or animal from an egg or spore through a sequence of steps in which cells differentiate and organs form;...
- Gene-environment interactionGene-environment interactionGene–environment interaction is the phenotypic effect of interactions between genes and the environment....
- Imaging geneticsImaging geneticsImaging genetics refers to the use of anatomical or physiological imaging technologies as phenotypic assays to evaluate genetic variation. Scientists that first used the term imaging genetics were interested in how genes influence psychopathology and used functional neuroimaging to investigate...
- Niche constructionNiche constructionNiche construction is the process in which an organism alters its own environment, often but not always in a manner that increases its chances of survival...
- Population geneticsPopulation geneticsPopulation genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...
- Social neuroscienceSocial neuroscienceSocial neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
Further reading
Books- Wexler, B.E. (2006). Brain and Culture: Neurobiology, Ideology and Social Change. MIT PressMIT PressThe MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...
, Cambridge. ISBN 9780262731935
Reviews
Articles
- Kim, H. S, Sherman, D. K., Taylor, S. E., Sasaki, J. Y., Chu, T. Q., Ryu, C., et al., (in press). Culture, the serotonin receptor5-HT receptorThe serotonin receptors, also known as 5-hydroxytryptamine receptors or 5-HT receptors, are a group of G protein-coupled receptors and ligand-gated ion channels found in the central and peripheral nervous systems. They mediate both excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission...
polymorphismPolymorphism (biology)Polymorphism in biology occurs when two or more clearly different phenotypes exist in the same population of a species — in other words, the occurrence of more than one form or morph...
(5-HTR1A), and locus of attention. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.