Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

A biocultural approach to psychiatric illnesses

  • Review
  • Published:
Psychopharmacology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Rationale

As a species, humans are vulnerable to numerous mental disorders, including depression and schizophrenia. This susceptibility may be due to the evolution of our large, complex brains, or perhaps because these illnesses counterintuitively confer some adaptive advantage. Additionally, cultural and biological factors may contribute to susceptibility and variation in mental illness experience and expression. Taking a holistic perspective could strengthen our understanding of these illnesses in diverse cultural contexts.

Objectives

This paper reviews some of these potential factors and contextualizes mental disorders within a biocultural framework.

Results

There is growing evidence that suggests cultural norms may influence inflammation, neurotransmitters, and neurobiology, as well as the illness experience. Specific examples include variation in schizophrenia delusions between countries, differences in links between inflammation and emotion between the United States and Japan, and differences in brain activity between Caucasian and Asian participants indicating that cultural values may moderate cognitive processes related to social cognition and interoception.

Conclusions

Research agendas that are grounded in an appreciation of biocultural diversity as it relates to psychiatric illness represent key areas for truly interdisciplinary research that can result in culturally sensitive treatments and highlight possible biological variation affecting medical treatment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. This is complicated by increased international migration. Additionally, within-group genetic variation is larger than variation between groups (e.g., Lewontin 1972), these ethnic/national categories only poorly map on to patterns of genetic diversity (Long and Kittles 2009), and self-identified ethnicity is often a poor indicator of genetic ancestry (e.g., Mersha and Abebe 2015).

  2. Cultural differences in psychiatric disorder epidemiology, etiology, etc. raise the question of the universality of emotional expression and interpretation in humans. Depression and schizophrenia, for instance, are diagnosed in part based on the presence of inappropriate emotional states. It is certainly reasonable to think that (in)appropriate emotional responses are shaped by culture, meaning that a pattern of behavior may be considered pathological in one cultural context but not another. A lengthy discussion of the universality of human emotions is beyond the scope of this paper, but data suggest that at least some facial and vocal expressions are uniformly recognized between cultures (e.g., anger, grief) but also that there may be emotional dialects, i.e., subtle differences in emotional expressions, that hinder identification in members of an out-group (for review see Scherer et al. 2011). Commendably, the DSM-V has addressed the role of cultural norms in the diagnosis of some psychiatric illnesses (Table 2 in Paniagua 2018).

References

  • Abraham LJ, Kroeger KM (1999) Impact of the -308 TNF promoter polymorphism on the transcriptional regulation of the TNF gene: relevance to disease. J Leukoc Biol 66:562–566

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Allen RD (1999) Polymorphism of the human TNF-alpha promoter: random variation or functional diversity? Mol Immunol 36:1017–1027

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Amaral WZ, Krueger RF, Ryff CD, Coe CL (2015) Genetic and environmental determinants of population variation in interleukin-6, its soluble receptor, and C-reactive protein: insights from identical and fraternal twins. Brain Behav Immun 49:171–181

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Andari E, Duhamel JR, Zalla T, Herbrecht R, Leboyer M, Sirigu A (2010) Promoting social behavior with oxytocin in high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 107:4389–4394

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Anders A, Tanaka M, Kinney DK (2013) Depression as an evolutionary strategy for defense against infection. Brain Behav Immun 31:9–22

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Andrews PW, Thompson JA Jr (2009) The bright side of being blue: depression as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems. Psychol Rev 116:620–654

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Arnett JJ (2008) The neglected 95%: why American psychology needs to become less American. Am Psychol 63:602–614

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Asturias EJ, Mayorga C, Caffaro C, Ramirez P, Ram M, Verstraeten T et al (2009) Differences in the immune response to hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccines in Guatemalan infants by ethnic group and nutritional status. Vaccine 27:3650–3654

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Belsky J (1997) Variation in susceptibility to environmental influence: an evolutionary argument. Psychol Inq 8:182–186

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belsky J (2005) Differential susceptibility to rearing influence: an evolutionary hypothesis and some evidence. In: Ellis B, Bjorklund D (eds) Origins of the social mind: evolutionary psychology and child development. Guilford, New York, pp 139–163

    Google Scholar 

  • Belsky J, Pluess M (2009) Beyond diathesis stress: differential susceptibility to environmental influences. Psychol Bull 135:885–908

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bisso-Machado R, Ramallo V, Tarazona-Santos E, Salzano FM, Cátira Bortolini M, Hünemeier T (2013) 5-HTTLPR genetic diversity and mode of subsistence in Native Americans. Am J Phys Anthropol 151:492–494

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Blalock JE (2005) The immune system as the sixth sense. J Intern Med 257:126–138

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Borgerhoff Mulder M (2001) Using phylogenetically based comparative methods in anthropology: more questions than answers. Evol Anthropol 10:99–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Botero M, MacDonald SE, Miller RS (2013) Anxiety-related behavior of orphan chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Gombe National Park, Tanzania. Primates 54:21–26

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Boyce WT, Ellis BJ (2005) Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary-developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity. Dev Psychopathol 17:271–301

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brüne M, Brüne-Cohrs U, McGrew WC, Preuschoft S (2006) Psychopathology in great apes: concepts, treatment options, and possible homologies to human psychiatric disorders. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 30:1246–1259

  • Brüne M (2012) Does the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) polymorphism (rs2254298) confer ‘vulnerability’ for psychopathology or ‘differential susceptibility’? Insights from evolution. BMC Med 10:38

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Bull SJ, Huezo-Diaz P, Binder EB, Cubells JF, Ranjith G, Maddock C, Miyazaki C, Alexander N, Hotopf M, Cleare AJ, Norris S, Cassidy E, Aitchison KJ, Miller AH, Pariante CM (2009) Functional polymorphisms in the interleukin-6 and serotonin transporter genes, and depression and fatigue induced by interferon-alpha and ribavirin treatment. Mol Psychiatry 14:1095–1104

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Butovskaya PR, Lazebny OE, Sukhodolskaya EM, Vasiliev VA, Dronova DA, Fedenok JN, Rosa A, Peletskaya EN, Ryskov AP, Butovskaya ML (2016) Polymorphisms of two loci at the oxytocin receptor gene in populations of Africa, Asia, and South Europe. BMC Genet 17:17

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell A (2010) Oxytocin and human social behavior. Personal Soc Psychol Rev 14:281–295

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caspi A, Sugden K, Moffitt TE, Taylor A, Craig IW, Harrington H, McClay J, Mill J, Martin J, Braithwaite A, Poulton R (2003) Influence of life stress on depression: moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science 301:386–389

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chee MWL, Zheng H, Oon Soo Goh J, Park D, Sutton BP (2011) Brain structure in young and old East Asians and Westerners: comparisons of structural volume and cortical thickness. J Cogn Neurosci 23:1065–1079

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chiao JY (2009) Cultural neuroscience: a once and future discipline. Prog Brain Res 178:287–304

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chiao JY, Blizinsky KD (2010) Culture-gene coevolution of individualism-collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene. Proc R Soc Biol Sci 277:529–537

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Chiao JY, Iidaka T, Gordon HL, Nogawa J, Bar M, Aminoff E, Sadato N, Ambady N (2008) Cultural specificity in amygdala response to fear faces. J Cogn Neurosci 20:2167–2174

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Coe CL, Love GD, Karasawa M, Kawakami N, Kitayama S, Markus HR, Tracy RP, Ryff CD (2011) Population differences in proinflammatory biology: Japanese have healthier profiles than Americans. Brain Behav Immun 25:494–502

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Craig AD (2002) How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nat Rev Neurosci 3:655–666

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Crespi B, Summers K, Dorus S (2007) Adaptive evolution of genes underlying schizophrenia. Proc R Soc Biol Sci 274:2801–2810

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cristia A, Dupoux E, Gurven M, Stieglitz J (2017) Child-directed speech is infrequent in a forager-farmer population: a time-allocation study. Child Dev. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12974

  • Crocq M-A (2015) A history of anxiety: from Hippocrates to DSM. Dialogues Clin Neurosci 17:319–325

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Crow TJ (1997) Is schizophrenia the price that Homo sapiens pays for language? Schizophr Res 28:127–141

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Curhan KB, Sims T, Markus HR, Kitayama S, Karasawa M, Kawakami N, Love GD, Coe CL, Miyamoto Y, Ryff CD (2014) Just how bad negative affect is for your health depends on culture. Psychol Sci 25:2277–2280

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Denkhaus R, Bös M (2012) How cultural is ‘cultural neuroscience’? Some comments on an emerging research paradigm. BioSocieties 7:433–458

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dere J, Sun J, Zhao Y, Persson TJ, Zhu X, Yao S, Bagby RM, Ryder AG (2013) Beyond ‘somatization’ and ‘psychologization’: symptom-level variation in depressed Han Chinese and Euro-Canadian outpatients. Front Psychol 4:377

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • DeRijk RH (2009) Single nucleotide polymorphisms related to HPA axis reactivity. Neuroimmunomodulation 16:340–352

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dhamoon KR, Hankivsky O (2011) Why the theory and practice of intersectionality matter to health research and policy. In: Hankivsky O (ed) Health inequities in Canada: intersectional frameworks and practices. UBC Press, Vancouver, pp 16–52

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobson SD, Brent LJN (2013) On the evolution of the serotonin transporter linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) in primates. Front Hum Neurosci 7:588

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Doi N, Hoshi Y, Itokawa M, Usui C, Yoshikawa T, Tachikawa H (2009) Persistence criteria for susceptibility genes for schizophrenia: a discussion from an evolutionary viewpoint. PLoS ONE 4:e7799

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Dujuardi Y, Sartono E, Wibowo H, Supali T, Yazdanbakhsh M (2010) A longitudinal study of BCG vaccination in early childhood: the development of innate and adaptive immune responses. PLoS ONE 5:e14066

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards LM, Lopez SJ (2006) Perceived family support, acculturation, and life satisfaction in Mexican American youth: a mixed-methods exploration. J Couns Psychol 53:279–287

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eisenberg DTA, Hayes MG (2011) Testing the null hypothesis: comments on ‘Culture-gene coevolution of individualism-collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene’. Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 278:329–332

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Escobar JJ (1987) Cross-cultural aspects of the somatization trait. Hosp Community Psychiatry 38:174–180

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson JF, Patel PN, Shah RY, Mulvey CK, Gadi R, Nijjar PS, Usman HM, Mehta NN, Shah R, Master SR, Propert KJ, Reilly MP (2013) Race and gender variation in response to evoked inflammation. J Transl Med 11:63

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Fincher CL, Thornhill R, Murray DR, Schaller M (2008) Pathogen prevalence predicts human cross-cultural variability in individualism/collectivism. Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 275:1279–1285

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freedman DA (1999) Ecological inference and the ecological fallacy. Int Encycl Soc Behav Sci 6:4027–4030

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelfand MJ, Raver JL, Nishii L, Leslie LM, Lun J, Lim BC, Duan L, Almaliach A, Ang S, Arnadottir J, Aycan Z, Boehnke K, Boski P, Cabecinhas R, Chan D, Chhokar J, D’Amato A, Ferrer M, Fischlmayr IC, Fischer R, Fülöp M, Georgas J, Kashima ES, Kashima Y, Kim K, Lempereur A, Marquez P, Othman R, Overlaet B, Panagiogopoulou P, Peltzer K, Perez-Florizno LR, Pnomarenko L, Realo A, Schei V, Schmitt M, Smith PB, Soomro N, Szabo E, Taveesin N, Toyama M, Van de Vliert E, Vohra N, Ward C, Yamaguchi S (2011) Differences between tight and loose cultures: a 33-nation study. Science 332:1100–1104

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gergen PJ, McQuillan GM, Kiely M, Ezzati-Rice TM, Sutter RW, Virella G (1995) A population-based serologic survey of immunity to tetanus in the United States. N Engl J Med 332:761–766

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Glei DA, Goldman N, Shkolnikov VM, Jdanov D, Shkolnikova M, Vaupel JW, Weinstein M (2013) Perceived stress and biological risk: is the link stronger in Russians than in Taiwanese and Americans? Stress 16:411–420

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman M, Marlow-O’Connor M, Torres I, Carter CS (2008) Diminished plasma oxytocin in schizophrenic patients with neuroendocrine dysfunction and emotional deficits. Schizophr Res 98:247–255

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gollo LL, Roberts JA, Cropley VL, Di Biase MA, Pantelis C, Zalesky A, Breakspear M (2018) Fragility and volatility of structural hubs in the human connectome. Nat Neurosci 21:1107–1116

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gurven MD (2018) Broadening horizons: sample diversity and socioecological theory are essential to the future of psychological science. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 115:11420–11,427

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Gurven M, von Reuden C, Massenkoff M, Kaplan H, Lero Vie M (2013) How universal is the Big Five? Testing the five-factor model of personality variation among forager-farmers in the Bolivian Amazon. J Pers Soc Psychol 104:354–370

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hagen EH (2003) The bargaining model of depression. In: Hammerstein P (ed) Genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 95–123

  • Han S, Ma Y (2014) Cultural differences in human brain activity: a quantitative meta-analysis. NeuroImage 99:293–300

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hankivsky O (2012) Women’s health, men’s health, and gender and health: implications of intersectionality. Soc Sci Med 74:1712–1720

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hedden T, Ketay S, Aron A, Markus HR, Gabrieli JDE (2008) Cultural influences on neural substrates of attentional control. Psychol Sci 19:12–17

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J (2008) A cultural species. In: Brown M (ed) Explaining culture scientifically. University of Washington Press, Seattle, pp 184–210

  • Henrich J, Heine SJ, Norenzayan A (2010) The weirdest people in the world? Behav Brain Sci 33:61–135

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hoge EA, Pollack MH, Kaufman RE, Zak PJ, Simon NM (2008) Oxytocin levels in social anxiety disorder. CNS Neurosci Ther 14:165–170

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Horowitz AV, Wakefield JC, Lorenzo-Luaces L (2016) History of depression. In: DeRubeis RJ, Strunk DR (eds) The Oxford handbook of mood disorders. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Immordino-Yang MH, Yang X-F, Damasio H (2014) Correlations between social-emotional feelings and anterior insula activity are independent from visceral states but influenced by culture. Front Hum Neurosci 8:728

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Jablensky A (2010) The diagnostic concept of schizophrenia: its history, evolution, and future prospects. Dialogues Clin Neurosci 12:271–287

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Jablensky A, Sartorius N, Emberg G, Anker M, Korten A, Cooper JE, Day R, Bertelsen A (1992) Schizophrenia: manifestations, incidence, and course in different cultures. A World Health Organization ten-country study. Psychol Med Monogr Suppl 20:1–97

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kagawa Singer M, Dressler W, George S, the NIH Expert Panel (2016) Culture: the missing link in health research. Soc Sci Med 170:237–246

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kim HS, Sherman DK, Sasaki JY, Xu J, Chu TQ, Ryu C, Suh EM, Graham K, Taylor SE (2010) Culture, distress, and oxytocin receptor polymorphism (OXTR) interact to influence emotional support seeking. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A (36):15717–15721

  • Kirmayer LJ, Ryder AG (2016) Culture and psychopathology. Curr Opin Psychol 8:143–148

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kirmayer LJ, Young A (1998) Culture and somatization: clinical, epidemiological, and ethnographic perspectives. Psychosom Med 60:420–430

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kitayama S, Park J (2017) Emotion and biological health: the socio-cultural moderation. Curr Opin Psychol 17:99–105

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kitayama S, Salvador CE (2017) Culture embrained: going beyond the nature-nurture dichotomy. Perspect Psychol Sci 12:841–854

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kitayama S, Mesquita B, Karasawa M (2006) Cultural affordances and emotional experience: socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States. J Pers Soc Psychol 91:890–903

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kitayama S, Park J, Morozink Boylan J, Miyamoto Y, Levine CS, Rose Markus H, Karasawa M, Coe CL, Kawakami N, Love GD, Ryff CD (2015) Expression of anger and ill health in two cultures: an examination of inflammation and cardiovascular risk. Psychol Sci 26:211–220

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kitayama S, Yanagisawa K, Ito A, Uega R, Uchida Y, Abe N (2017) Reduced orbitofrontal cortical volume is associated with interdependent self-construal. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114:7969–7974

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kitayama S, Park J, Miyamoto Y, Date H, Boylan JM, Markus HR, Karasawa M, Kawakami N, Coe CL, Love GD, Ryff CD (2018) Behavioral adjustment moderates the link between neuroticism and biological health risk: a US-Japan comparison study. Personal Soc Psychol Bull 44:809–822

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klinger E (1975) Consequences of commitment to and disengagement from incentives. Psychol Rev 82:1–25

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koelkebeck K, Wilhelm C (2014) Cross-cultural aspects of social cognitive abilities in schizophrenia. In: Lysaker PH, Dimaggio G, Brüne M (eds) Social cognition and metacognition in schizophrenia: psychopathology and treatment approaches. Academic Press, Cambridge, pp 29–47

  • Kollmann TR (2013) Variation between populations in the innate immune response to vaccine adjuvants. Front Immunol 4:81

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Koper JW, van Rossum EFC, van den Akker ELT (2014) Glucocorticoid receptor polymorphisms and haplotypes and their expression in health and disease. Steroids 92:62–73

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kummrow MS, Brüne M (2018) Psychopathologies in captive nonhuman primates and approaches to diagnosis and treatment. J Zoo Wildl Med 49:259–271

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lalor MK, Floyd S, Gorak-Stolinska P, Ben-Smith A, Weir RE, Smith SG, Newport MJ, Blitz R, Mvula H, Branson K, McGrath N, Crampin AC, Fine PE, Dockrell HM (2011) BCG vaccination induces different cytokine profiles following infant BCG vaccination in the UK and Malawi. J Infect Dis 204:1075–1085

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lewontin RC (1972) The apportionment of human diversity. In: Dobzhansky T, Hecht MK, Steere WC (eds) Evolutionary biology. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Long JC, Kittles RA (2009) Human genetic diversity and the nonexistence of biological races. Hum Biol 81:777–798

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Luhrmann TM, Padmavati R, Tharoor H, Osei A (2015) Differences in voice-hearing experiences of people with psychosis in the USA, India, and Ghana: interview-based study. Br J Psychiatry 206:41–44

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Madrid JE, Mandalaywala TM, Coyne SP, Ahloy-Dallaire J, Garner JP, Barr CS, Maestripieri D, Parker KJ (2018) Adaptive developmental plasticity in rhesus macaques: the serotonin transporter gene interacts with maternal care to affect juvenile social behavior. Proc R Soc Biol Sci 285:20180541

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Markus HR, Kitayama S (1991) Culture and the self: implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychol Rev 98:224–253

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mersha TB, Abebe T (2015) Self-reported race/ethnicity in the age of genomic research: its potential impact on understanding health disparities. Hum Genomics 9:1

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Miller R, Kirschbaum C (2019) Cultures under stress: a cross-national meta-analysis of cortisol responses to the Trier Social Stress Test and their association with anxiety-related value orientations and internalizing mental disorders. Psychoneuroendocrinol (in press)

  • Miyamoto Y, Morozink Boylan J, Coe CL, Curhan KB, Levine CS, Rose Markus H, Park J, Kitayama S, Kawakami N, Karasawa M, Love GD, Ryff CD (2013) Negative emotions predict elevated interleukin-6 in the United States but not Japan. Brain Behav Immun 34:79–85

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mu Y, Kitayama S, Han S, Gelfand MJ (2015) How culture gets embrained: cultural differences in event-related potentials of social norm violations. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 112:15348–15,353

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Murata A, Moser JS, Kitayama S (2013) Culture shapes electrocortical responses during emotion suppression. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 8:595–601

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nash LT, Fritz J, Alford PA, Brent L (1999) Variables influencing the origins of diverse abnormal behaviors in a large sample of captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Am J Primatol 48:15–29

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nédélec Y, Sanz J, Baharian G, Szpiech ZA, Pacis A, Dumaine A, Grenier J-C, Freiman A, Sams AJ, Hebert S, Pagé Sabourin A, Luca F, Blekhman R, Hernandez RD, Pique-Regi R, Tung J, Yotova V, Barreiro LB (2016) Genetic ancestry and natural selection drive population differences in immune responses to pathogens. Cell 167:657–669

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nesse RM (1999) Proximate and evolutionary studies of anxiety, stress, and depression: synergy at the interface. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 23:895–903

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nesse RM (2006) Darwinian medicine and mental disorders. Int Congr Ser 1296:83–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nisbett RE, Miyamoto Y (2005) The influence of culture: holistic versus analytic perception. Trends Cogn Sci 9:467–473

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Otte C, McCaffery J, Ali S, Whooley MA (2007) Association of a serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) with depression, perceived stress, and norepinephrine in patients with coronary disease: the Heart and Soul Study. Am J Psychiatry 164:1379–1384

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ozsoy S, Esel E, Kula M (2009) Serum oxytocin levels in patients with depression and the effects of gender and antidepressant treatment. Psychiatry Res 169:249–252

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Paalani M, Lee JW, Haddad E, Tonstad S (2011) Determinants of inflammatory markers in a bi-ethnic population. Ethn Dis 21:142–149

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Paniagua FA (2018) ICD-10 versus DSM-5 on cultural issues. SAGE Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018756165

  • Piraino B, Vollmer-Conna U, Lloyd AR (2012) Genetic associations of fatigue and other symptom domains of the acute sickness response to infection. Brain Behav Immun 26:552–558

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pluess M, Belsky J, Way BM, Taylor SE (2010) 5-HTTLPR moderates effects of current life events on neuroticism: differential susceptibility to environmental influences. Prog Neuro-Psychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 34:1070–1074

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Porcelli S, Fabbri C, Serretti A (2012) Meta-analysis of serotonin transporter gene promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) association with antidepressant efficacy. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 22:239–258

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rafiq S, Frayling TM, Murray A, Hurst A, Stevens K, Weedon MN, Henley W, Ferrucci L, Bandinelli S, Corsi AM, Guralnik JM, Melzer D (2007) A common variant of the interleukin 6 receptor (IL-6r) gene increases IL-6r and IL-6 levels, without other inflammatory effects. Genes Immun 8:552–559

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Raison CL, Miller AH (2013) The evolutionary significance of depression in Pathogen Host Defense (PATHOS-D). Mol Psychiatry 18:15–37

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Reich D, Patterson N, Ramesh Y, De Jager PL, McDonald GJ, Tandon A, Choy E, Hu D, Tamraz B, Pawlikowska L, Wassel-Fyr C, Huntsman S, Waliszewska A, Rossin E, Li R, Garcia M, Reiner A, Ferrell R, Cummings S, Kwok P-Y, Harris T, Zmuda JM, Ziv E, for the Health, Aging, and Body Composition (Health ABC) Study (2007) Admixture mapping of an allele affecting interleukin 6 soluble receptor and interleukin 6 levels. Am J Hum Genet 80:716–726

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ross CT, Winterhalder B (2016) A hierarchical Bayesian analysis of parasite prevalence and sociocultural outcomes: the role of structural racism and sanitation infrastructure. Am J Hum Biol 28:74–89

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rubin LH, Carter CS, Drogos L, Pournajafi-Nazarloo H, Sweeney JA, Maki PM (2010) Peripheral oxytocin is associated with reduced symptom severity in schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 124:13–21

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ryder AG, Yang J, Zhu X, Yao S, Yi J, Heine SJ, Bagby RM (2008) The cultural shaping of depression: somatic symptoms in China, psychological symptoms in North America? J Abnorm Psychol 117:300–313

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Saxe R, Wexler A (2005) Making sense of another mind: the role of the right temporo-parietal junction. Neuropsychologia 43:1391–1399

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Scherer KR, Clark-Polner E, Mortillaro M (2011) In the eye of the beholder? Universality and cultural specificity in the expression and perception of emotion. Int J Psychol 46:401–435

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz SH (2006) A theory of cultural value orientations: explication and applications. Comp Sociol 5:137–182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Segall MH, Campbell DT, Herskovitz MJ (1966) The influence of culture on visual perception. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis

    Google Scholar 

  • Shattuck EC, Muehlenbein MP (2015) Human sickness behavior: ultimate and proximate explanations. Am J Phys Anthropol 157:1–18

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shi Q, Wang XS, Li G, Shah ND, Orlowski RZ, Williams LA, Mendoza TR, Cleeland CS (2015) Racial/ethnic disparities in inflammatory gene single-nucleotide polymorphisms as predictors of a high risk for symptom burden in patients with multiple myeloma 1 year after diagnosis. Cancer 121:1138–1146

  • Siber GR, Santosham M, Reid GR, Thompson C, Almeido-Hill J, Morell A et al (1990) Impaired antibody response to Haemophilus influenzae type b polysaccharide and low IgG2 and IgG4 concentrations in Apache children. N Engl J Med 323:1387–1392

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Simons RL, Lei MK, Beach SRH, Brody GH, Philibert RA, Gibbons FX (2011) Social environmental variation, plasticity genes, and aggression: evidence for the differential susceptibility hypothesis. Am Sociol Rev 76:833–912

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Simons RL, Lei MK, Stewart EA, Brody GH, Beach SRH, Philibert RA, Gibbons FX (2012) Social adversity, genetic variation, street code, and aggression: a genetically informed model of violent behavior. Youth Violence Juvenile Justice 10:3–24

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Singelis TM, Triandis HC, Bhawuk DP, Gelfand MJ (1995) Horizontal and vertical dimensions of individualism and collectivism: a theoretical and measurement refinement. Cross-Cult Res 29:240–275

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skaper SD, Facci L, Zusso M, Giusti P (2018) An inflammation-centric view of neurological disease: beyond the neuron. Front Cell Neurosci 12:72

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Souza MCLA, Martins CS, Silva-Junior IM, Chriguer RS, Bueno AC, Antonini SR, Silva WA Jr, Zago MA, Moreira AC, de Castro M (2014) NR3C1 polymorphisms in Brazilians of Caucasian, African, and Asian ancestry: glucocorticoid sensitivity and genotype association. Arq Bras Endocrinol Metabol 58:53–61

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Srinivasan S, Bettella F, Mattingsdal M, Wang Y, Witoelar A, Schork AJ, Thompson WK, Zuber V, Winsvold BS, Zwart J-A, Collier DA, Desikan RS, Melle I, Werge T, Dale AM, Djurovic S, Andreassen OA (2016) Genetic markers of human evolution are enriched in schizophrenia. Biol Psychiatry 80(4):284–292

  • Steffen BT, Steffen LM, Tracy R, Siscovick D, Jacobs D, Liu K, He K, Hanson NQ, Nettleton JA, Tsai MY (2012) Ethnicity, plasma phospholipid fatty acid composition and inflammatory/endothelial activation biomarkers in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). Eur J Clin Nutr 66:600–605

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Stein MB, Campbell-Sills L, Gelernter J (2009) Genetic variation in 5HTTLPR is associated with emotional resilience. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet 150B:900–906

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Steinkopf L (2017) The social situation of sickness: an evolutionary perspective on therapeutic encounters. Evol Psychol Sci 3:270–286

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stieglitz J, Schniter R, von Reuden C, Kaplan H, Gurven M (2015) Functional disability and social conflict increase risk of depression in older adulthood among Bolivian forager-farmers. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 70:948–956

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Suhail K, Cochrane R (2002) Effect of culture and environment on the phenomenology of delusions and hallucinations. Int J Soc Psychiatry 48:126–138

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Suomi SJ (2006) Risk, resilience, and gene x environment interactions in rhesus monkeys. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1094:52–62

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Syed AA, Irving JAE, Redfern CPF, Hall AG, Unwin NC, White M, Bhopal RS, Alberti KGMM, Weaver JU (2004) Low prevalence of the N363S polymorphism of the glucocorticoid receptor in South Asians living in the United Kingdom. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 89:232–235

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tartter M, Hammen C, Bower J, Brennan PA, Cole S (2015) Effects of chronic interpersonal stress exposure on depressive symptoms are moderated by genetic variation at IL6 and IL1beta in youth. Brain Behav Immun 46:104–111

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor SE, Way BM, Welch WT, Hilmert CJ, Lehman BJ, Eisenberger NI (2006) Early family environment, current adversity, the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism, and depressive symptomology. Biol Psychiatry 60:671–676

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor MJ, Sen S, Bhagwagar Z (2010) Antidepressant response and the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region. Biol Psychiatry 68:536–543

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Teffer K, Semendeferi K (2012) Human prefrontal cortex: evolution, development, and pathology. Prog Brain Res 195:191–218

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson RJ, Parker KJ, Hallmayer JF, Waugh CE, Gotlib IH (2011) Oxytocin receptor gene polymorphism (rs2254298) interacts with familial risk for psychopathology to predict symptoms of depression and anxiety in adolescent girls. Psychoneuroendocrinology 36:144–147

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Triandis HC (1995) Individualism and collectivism. West View Press, Boulder

    Google Scholar 

  • Trumble BC, Gaulin SJ, Dunbar MD, Kaplan H, Gurven M (2016) No sex or age difference in dead-reckoning ability among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists. Hum Nat 27:51–67

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tsai JL, Knutson B, Fung HH (2006) Cultural variation in affect valuation. J Pers Soc Psychol 90:288–307

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • van IJzendoorn MH, Belsky J, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ (2012) Serotonin transporter genotype 5HTTLPR as a marker of differential susceptibility? A meta-analysis of child and adolescent gene-by-environment studies. Transl Psychiatry 2:e147

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Varela RE, Vernberg EM, Sanchez-Sosa JJ, Riveros A, Mitchell M, Mashunkashey J (2004) Anxiety reporting and culturally associated interpretation biases and cognitive schemas: a comparison of Mexican, Mexican American, and European American families. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 33:237–247

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Voronov M, Singer JA (2002) The myth of individualism-collectivism: a critical review. J Soc Psychol 142:461–480

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wang F, Peng K, Chechlacz M, Humphreys GW, Sui J (2017a) The neural basis of independence versus interdependence orientations: a voxel-based morphometric analysis of brain volume. Psychol Sci 28:519–529

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wang T, Yin J, Miller AH, Xiao C (2017b) A systematic review of the association between fatigue and genetic polymorphisms. Brain Behav Immun 62:230–244

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Watanabe E, Hirasawa H, Oda S, Matsuda K, Hatano M, Tokuhisa T (2005) Extremely high interleukin-6 blood levels and outcome in the critically ill are associated with tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin-1 β related gene polymorphisms. Crit Care Med 33:89–97

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Way BM, Taylor SE (2010) The serotonin transporter polymorphism is associated with cortisol response to psychosocial stress. Biol Psychiatry 67:487–492

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Weiss B, Tram JM, Weisz JR, Rescorla L, Achenbach TM (2009) Differential symptom expression and somatization in Thai versus US children. J Consult Clin Psychol 77:987–992

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Williams GC, Nesse RM (1991) The dawn of Darwinian medicine. Q Rev Biol 66:1–22

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Yamakawa K, Matsunaga M, Isowa T, Ohira H (2015) Serotonin transporter gene polymorphism modulates inflammatory cytokine responses during acute stress. Sci Rep 5:13852

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Yu Q, Abe N, King A, Yoon C, Liberzon I, Kitayama S (2018) Cultural variation in the gray matter volume of the prefrontal cortex is moderated by the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4). Cereb Cortex. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhy271

  • Zhu Y, Zhang L, Fan J, Han S (2007) Neural basis of cultural influence on self-representation. Neuroimage 34:1310–1317

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank David Samson for his kind and helpful comments, as well as the anonymous reviewers who have helped improve this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Health Disparities Research, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, 78249, USA

    Eric C. Shattuck

Authors
  1. Eric C. Shattuck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric C. Shattuck.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This article belongs to a Special Issue on Neuroimmune Signaling in Psychiatric Disease

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Shattuck, E.C. A biocultural approach to psychiatric illnesses. Psychopharmacology 236, 2923–2936 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-019-5178-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-019-5178-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation