Abstract
Culture, consisting of symbols, language, artifacts, rules, is a pool of memes. Memes enter the brain and take up residence in the brain through long-term potentiation of neural network patterns. Endemic (cultural) memes introduced in childhood are strongly potentiated as they are repeatedly introduced during a period when the filtration system for meme introduction is immature. Eventually, existing memes contribute to the formation of the filtration system which filters out new memes that may conflict with or contradict the preexisting potentiated memes. In each culture, there are memes for being ill and being “crazy.”
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Leigh, H. (2010). Culture and Mental Illness. In: Genes, Memes, Culture, and Mental Illness. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5671-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5671-2_3
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