Culture: By the brain and in the brain?

© 2016, Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz. All rights reserved. Since the 1990s, several disciplines have emerged at the interface between neuroscience and the social and human sciences. For the most part, they aim at capturing the commonalities that underlay the heterogeneity of human behaviors and experiences. Neuroanthropology and cultural neuroscience, or the "neurodisciplines of culture," appear different, since their goal is to understand specificity rather than commonality and to address how cultural differences are inscribed in the brain. After offering an overview of these disciplines, and of their relation to endeavors such as cultural psychology and social neuroscience, this article discusses some of the most representative studies in the area in order to explore in which ways they are relevant for an understanding of culture.