Integrating brain, cognition and culture

Why should there now appear a journal devoted to integrating cognition and culture? We argue that new methods for examining the origin of brain networks that shape the developing mind provide the basis for such integration. These methods include imaging the human brain at rest or when performing tasks and examining individual differences in network efficiency by studying people with different forms of critical genes. In this article we outline a framework for studying attention, and then apply it to the study of language and number processing. Each domain illustrates how cultural differences influence the brain networks involved in cognition. In each case caregivers often serve as representative of the culture in helping to shape the brain. © 2017, Springer Singapore.