Understanding cultural differences in human behavior: a cultural neuroscience approach

•Cultural differences in human behavior are widely documented.•East Asians show enhanced brain activity to mentalization and emotion regulation.•Westerners show enhanced brain activity to emotion response and self-reflection.•Future cultural neuroscience research is discussed.

Cultural differences in human behavior have been widely documented and interpreted by various psychological theories that emphasize cognitive or affective mechanisms. However, it remains a challenge to provide a coherent neuroscience understanding of culturally discrepant behaviors. Cultural neuroscience research has shown increasing evidence for culturally specific patterns of brain activity such as stronger activity in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, lateral frontal cortex and temporoparietal junction in East Asians but stronger activity in the anterior cingulate, ventral medial prefrontal cortex, bilateral insula and temporal pole in Westerners. These findings help to create a coherent neural account of behavior differences between Western and East Asian cultures.