Cultural Neuroscience
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Cultural Neuroscience
Cultural neuroscience is a field of research that focuses on the interrelation between a human's cultural environment and neurobiological systems. The field particularly incorporates ideas and perspectives from related domains like anthropology, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience to study sociocultural influences on human behaviors. Such impacts on behavior are often measured using various neuroimaging methods, through which cross-cultural variability in neural activity can be examined. 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 proce ...
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Cultural Variation
Cultural variation refers to the rich diversity in social practices that different cultures exhibit around the world. Cuisine and art all change from one culture to the next, but so do gender roles, economic systems, and social hierarchy among any number of other humanly organised behaviours. Cultural variation can be studied across cultures (for example, a cross-cultural study of ritual in Indonesia and Brazil) or across generations (for example, a comparison of Generation X and Millennials, Generation Y) and is often a subject studied by anthropologists, sociologists and cultural theorists with subspecialties in the fields of economic anthropology, ethnomusicology, health sociology etc. In recent years, cultural variation has become a rich source of study in neuroanthropology, cultural neuroscience, and social neuroscience. See also * Cultural diversity * Cultural anthropology * Culture theory * Neuroanthropology References Further reading * * * Lende, D. H., & Downey, G. (20 ...
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Self
The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood''—should, however, not be confused with subjectivity itself. Ostensibly, this sense is directed outward from the subject to refer inward, back to its "self" (or itself). Examples of psychiatric conditions where such "sameness" may become broken include depersonalization, which sometimes occurs in schizophrenia: the self appears different from the subject. The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) sameness and may involve categorization and labeling, selfhood implies a first-person perspective and suggests potential uniqueness. Conversely, we use "person" as a third-person reference. Personal identity can be impaired in late-stage Alzheimer's disease and in other neurode ...
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Happiness
Happiness, in the context of Mental health, mental or emotional states, is positive or Pleasure, pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. Since the 1960s, happiness research has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including gerontology, social psychology and positive psychology, Clinical research, clinical and medical research and happiness economics. Definitions "Happiness" is subject to debate on usage and meaning, and on possible differences in understanding by culture. The word is mostly used in relation to two factors: * the current experience of the feeling of an affect (psychology), emotion (affect) such as pleasure or joy, or of a more general sense of 'emotional condition as a whole'. For instance Daniel Kahneman has defined happiness as "''what I experience here and now''". This usage is prevalent in dictionary definiti ...
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Collectivism And Individualism
In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and social groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, structure, division of labor, communication systems, and so on. And because of these characteristics of social organization, people can monitor their everyday work and involvement in other activities that are controlled forms of human interaction. These interactions include: affiliation, collective resources, substitutability of individuals and recorded control. These interactions come together to constitute common features in basic social units such as family, enterprises, clubs, states, etc. These are social organizations. Common examples of modern social organizations are government agencies, NGO's and corporations. Elements Social organizations happen in everyday life. Many people belong to various social structures—institutional ...
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Major Depressive Disorder
Major depressive disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive low mood, low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. Introduced by a group of US clinicians in the mid-1970s, the term was adopted by the American Psychiatric Association for this symptom cluster under mood disorders in the 1980 version of the ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (DSM-III), and has become widely used since. The diagnosis of major depressive disorder is based on the person's reported experiences, behavior reported by relatives or friends, and a mental status examination. There is no laboratory test for the disorder, but testing may be done to rule out physical conditions that can cause similar symptoms. The most common time of onset is in a person's 20s, with females affected about twice as often as males. The course of the disorder varies widely, from one epis ...
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Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a part of the prefrontal cortex in the mammalian brain. The ventral medial prefrontal is located in the frontal lobe at the bottom of the cerebral hemispheres and is implicated in the processing of risk and fear, as it is critical in the regulation of amygdala activity in humans. It also plays a role in the inhibition of emotional responses, and in the process of decision-making and self-control. It is also involved in the cognitive evaluation of morality. Anatomy While the ventromedial prefrontal cortex does not have a universally agreed on demarcation, in most sources, it is equivalent to the ventromedial reward network of Öngür and Price. This network includes Brodmann area 10, Brodmann area 14, Brodmann area 25, and Brodmann area 32, as well as portions of Brodmann area 11, Brodmann area 12, and Brodmann area 13. However, not all sources agree on the boundaries of the area. Different researchers use the term ''ventromedial pref ...
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Superior Parietal Lobule
The superior parietal lobule is bounded in front by the upper part of the postcentral sulcus, but is usually connected with the postcentral gyrus above the end of the sulcus. The superior parietal lobule contains Brodmann's areas brodmann area 5, 5 and brodmann area 7, 7. Behind it is the lateral part of the parietooccipital fissure, around the end of which it is joined to the occipital lobe by a curved gyrus, the arcus parietooccipitalis. Below, it is separated from the inferior parietal lobule by the horizontal portion of the intraparietal sulcus. The superior parietal lobule is involved with spatial orientation, and receives a great deal of visual input as well as sensory input from one's hand. It is also involved with other functions of the parietal lobe in general. There are major white matter pathway connections with the superior parietal lobule such as the Cingulum (brain), Cingulum, SLF I, superior parietal lobule connections of the Medial longitudinal fasciculus and othe ...
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Superior Temporal Gyri
The superior temporal gyrus (STG) is one of three (sometimes two) gyri in the temporal lobe of the human brain, which is located laterally to the head, situated somewhat above the external ear. The superior temporal gyrus is bounded by: * the lateral sulcus above; * the superior temporal sulcus (not always present or visible) below; * an imaginary line drawn from the preoccipital notch to the lateral sulcus posteriorly. The superior temporal gyrus contains several important structures of the brain, including: * Brodmann areas 41 and 42, marking the location of the auditory cortex, the cortical region responsible for the sensation of sound; * Wernicke's area, Brodmann 22p, an important region for the processing of speech so that it can be understood as language. The superior temporal gyrus contains the auditory cortex, which is responsible for processing sounds. Specific sound frequencies map precisely onto the auditory cortex. This auditory (or tonotopic) map is similar to the ...
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Middle Temporal Gyri
Middle temporal gyrus is a gyrus in the brain on the temporal lobe. It is located between the superior temporal gyrus and inferior temporal gyrus. It corresponds largely to Brodmann area 21. The middle temporal gyrus is bounded by: * the superior temporal sulcus above; * the inferior temporal sulcus below; * an imaginary line drawn from the preoccipital notch to the lateral sulcus posteriorly. It has been connected with processes as different as contemplating distance, recognition of known faces, audio-visual emotional recognition, and accessing word meaning while reading. Some studies indicate that lesions of the posterior region of the middle temporal gyrus, in the left cerebral hemisphere, may result in alexia and agraphia for kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japan ...
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FMRI
Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area of the brain is in use, blood flow to that region also increases. The primary form of fMRI uses the blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) contrast, discovered by Seiji Ogawa in 1990. This is a type of specialized brain and body scan used to map neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals by imaging the change in blood flow (hemodynamic response) related to energy use by brain cells. Since the early 1990s, fMRI has come to dominate brain mapping research because it does not involve the use of injections, surgery, the ingestion of substances, or exposure to ionizing radiation. This measure is frequently corrupted by noise from various sources; hence, statistical procedures are used to extract the underlying signal. T ...
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Precentral Gyrus
The precentral gyrus is a prominent gyrus on the surface of the posterior frontal lobe of the brain. It is the site of the primary motor cortex that in humans is cytoarchitecturally defined as Brodmann area 4. Structure The precentral gyrus lies in front of the postcentral gyrus - mostly on the lateral (convex) side of each cerebral hemisphere - from which it is separated by the central sulcus. Its anterior border is represented by the precentral sulcus, while inferiorly it borders to the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure). Medially, it is contiguous with the paracentral lobule. The internal pyramidal layer (layer V) of the precentral cortex contains giant (70-100 micrometers) pyramidal neurons called Betz cells, which send long axons to the contralateral motor nuclei of the cranial nerves and to the lower motor neurons in the ventral horn of the spinal cord. These axons form the corticospinal tract. The Betz cells along with their long axons are referred to as upper motor n ...
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Inferior Parietal Lobule
The inferior parietal lobule (subparietal district) lies below the horizontal portion of the intraparietal sulcus, and behind the lower part of the postcentral sulcus. Also known as Geschwind's territory after Norman Geschwind, an American neurologist, who in the early 1960s recognised its importance. It is a part of the parietal lobe. Structure It is divided from rostral to caudal into two gyri: * One, the supramarginal gyrus, arches over the upturned end of the lateral fissure; it is continuous in front with the postcentral gyrus, and behind with the superior temporal gyrus. * The second, the angular gyrus, arches over the posterior end of the superior temporal sulcus, behind which it is continuous with the middle temporal gyrus. In macaque neuroanatomy, this region is often divided into caudal and rostral portions, cIPL and rIPL, respectively. The cIPL is further divided into areas Opt and PG whereas rIPL is divided into PFG and PF areas. Function Inferior parietal lobule has ...
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