Neuroanthropolgy: What is it and WHY should You Care? (Brain Science Podcast 97)

Very cool episode of the Brain Science Podcast. Dr. Ginger Campbell speaks with  Daniel H. Lende and Greg Downey about neuroanthropology in general, and about their 2012 book, The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology, in particular.

Neuroanthropolgy: What is it and WHY should You Care? (BSP 97)

May 24, 2013

You may be tired of seeing the prefix "neuro" used to describe every new fad, but The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology [2012] edited by Daniel H. Lende and Greg Downey makes an impassioned argument for why neuroscience and anthropology should be working together to unravel the ongoing mystery of how our brains make us who we are. The latest Brain Science Podcast (BSP 97) is a thought-provoking conversation with Downey and Lende. After explaining that anthropology can offer neuroscience field data about "brains in the wild," we explore two case studies that demonstrate the promise of this new partnership.

Listen to BSP 97 (or download mp3)

Download the FREE Episode Transcript.
Subscribe to the Brain Science Podcast or listen on the BSP Mobile app.

References and Links:

• The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology [2012] edited by Daniel H. Lende and Greg Downey
• Ethnography and Addiction by Daniel Lende*
• Balance between cultures: equilibrium training by Greg Downey*
• YouTube video showing copoeira
• Neuroanthropology: Blog on PLOS
• Principles of Brain Evolution by Georg F. Striedter
• BSP 47: Discussion of Principles of Brain Evolution

*Please see the FREE transcript for additional references.

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Dirk Hanson - The Encultured Brain: A Book Review

Over at his interesting and informative blog, Addiction Inbox, Dirk Hanson reviews the recent book from editors Daniel H. Lende and Greg Downey - The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology (2012). This looks like a cool book, and a necessary one. There is still a powerful resistance among philosophers and neuroscientists to accepting that the mind and brain are shaped as much by culture as they are by genetics.

The review is from October of 2012 - I'm a little slow sometimes in getting things shared. Hanson is the author of The Chemical Carousel: What Science Tells Us About Beating Addiction.

The Encultured Brain: A Book Review

How biology and culture jointly define us.
Anyone who follows academia knows that the broad category of courses known as the Liberal Arts has been going through major changes for some time now. In a sort of collegiate scrum to prove relevance and fund-worthiness, disciplines like sociology, anthropology, human ecology, cultural psychology, and even English, have been subjected to a winnowing process. The clear winner seems to anthropology, which has expanded its own field by connecting with modern findings in neuroscience while simultaneously swallowing up what was left of sociology. 

It makes sense. Take addiction for an example. Anthropology is a natural and accessible discipline within which to connect the two often-conflicting facets of addiction—its fundamental neuroarchitecture, and the socioenvironmental influences that shape this basic biological endowment. In The Encultured Brain, published this year by MIT Press, co-editors Daniel H. Lende and Greg Downey call for a merger of anthropology and brain science, offering ten case histories of how that might be accomplished. The case histories are lively, ranging from the somatics of Taijutsu martial arts in Japan, to the presence of humor among breast cancer survivors. These attempts to combine laboratory research with anthropological fieldwork are important early efforts at a new combinatory science—one of the hot new “neuros” that just might make it.

I have corresponded with Daniel Lende, one of the book’s co-editors, and I am happy to disclose a mention in the book’s acknowledgements as one of the many people who formed a “rolling cloud of online discussion” with respect to neuroscience and the new anthropology. I am pleased to see that the thoughts of Lende and Downey and others on the emerging science of neuroanthropology are now available as a textbook.

The term “neuroanthropology” was evidently coined by Stephen Jay Gould. A number of prominent thinkers have dipped into this arena over the years: Melvin Konner, Sarah Hrdy, Norman Cousins, Robert Sapolsky, and Antonio Damasio, to name a random few, but the term didn’t seem to get a foothold of note until Lende and Downey began their Neuroanthropology blog, now at PLOS blogs.

The term has the advantage of meaning exactly what it says: an engagement between social science and neuroscience. Lende and Downey look ahead to a time when field-ready equipment will measure nutritional intake, cortisol levels, prenatal conditions, and brain development in the field. As such, neuroanthropology fits somewhere in the vicinity of evolutionary biology and cultural psychology. As a potential new synthesis, it is brilliant and challenging, representing an integrative approach to that ancient problem—how our genetic endowment is influenced by our cultural endowment, or vice versa, if you prefer.

Read the whole review.

Robert Wright and Daniel Lende Debate Addiction: Evolutionary Psychology vs. Neuroanthropology.

This past weekend's episode of The Wright Show featured Robert Wright in conversation with Daniel Lende discussing a recent study on a "gene" for internet addition. They both take issue with the study. They then move on to discuss the topic of addiction in general, debating evolutionary psychology (Wright) vs. neuroanthropology (Lende).

Here are some links to the material that started the discussion (courtesy of Lende at his blog about his appearance on The Wright Show) - German scientists find ‘internet-addiction gene -- Caught In The Web? Blame Your Genes -- and the original article (paywall), a 2012 paper, The Role of the CHRNA4 Gene in Internet Addiction: A Case-control Study.

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero) and Daniel Lende (University of South Florida, Neuroanthroplogy)

• Daniel explains neuroanthropology   3:50
• A seriously flawed study on Internet addiction   6:38
• Is evolutionary psychology just "just-so stories"?   9:21
• Why you can't stop checking Twitter   8:30
• Why Daniel moved away from evo-psych explanations   11:59
• The conventional wisdom on dopamine is wrong   7:20

Play entire video

 

Robert Wright 

Daniel Lende

 

Recorded: Sep 14   Posted: Oct 13, 2012

Download:   wmv | mp4 | mp3 | fast mp3

 

• Daniel's blog, Neuroanthroplogy
• Bob's first post on Internet addiction
• Bob's follow-up post
• Daniel's critique of Bob's post
• Daniel's book, "The Encultured Brain"
• netaddiction.com
• Bob's book, "The Moral Animal"

Channel N - Big Think Interview with Helen Fisher: Neuro Romance

From Psych Central's Channel N, curated by Sandra Kiume - this interview with neuroanthropologist Helen Fisher comes from Big Think, another cool site. In this video she talks about love and human behavior.

Neuro Romance

By Sandra Kiume

Big Think Interview with Helen Fisher

Neuroanthropologist Helen Fisher talks about love, human behaviour, and the brain systems behind it. In this in-depth interview, she discusses the drive to love, casual sex, cheating and recovery from cheating, what makes us attracted to someone, and the age-old question, “What is love?” Is her research unromantic? Describing the chemicals in roses doesn’t make them any less beautiful.

Producer: Big Think
Featuring: Helen Fisher
Length: 00:33:29