Cultural Changes in Neural Structure and Function

Human cultures are not static. An emerging body of research has documented cultural changes in a wide variety of behaviors, psychological tendencies, and cultural products. Increasingly, this field has also begun to test hypothesis regarding the causes of these changes and to create forecasts for future patterns of change. Yet to date, the question of how our brains may change as a function of systematic changes in our environments has received relatively little attention and scant empirical testing. In the present chapter we begin by reviewing the literature on cultural change, including Varnum and Grossmann’s program of research using a behavioral ecology framework to understand patterns of cultural change. Next we offer some initial predictions for changes in neural structure and function that may occur in the coming decades. Finally, we offer some ideas about how empirical research testing these predictions might be conducted and discuss challenges and opportunities for extending the study of cultural change to neuroscience.