Candela Antón, anthropologist: "What one generation experiences culturally can alter the genes passed on to the next."

Candela Antón is an actress who played Berta Prats García in the series " Merlí ." She now studies anthropology and shares it on social media. One of her TikTok videos asks the question: "Can culture shape your brain and your genes?"

To this question, Antón begins by explaining: “Imagine two newborn babies: one in Tokyo and the other in a small town in the Amazon. Their brains are structurally practically identical, but if you follow them for a few years, you'll see that they don't just speak different languages. They also think differently, perceive the world differently, and feel differently.”

The anthropologist poses another question, which she answers herself: “What if I told you their brains developed with different architectures? The culture we are born into not only teaches us what to do but literally reshapes how we think . This is neurobiology.”

Candela explains how culture affects our bodies: “Studies on neuroplasticity show that certain cultural practices, such as the type of upbringing we receive, the way we resolve conflicts, or even how we express emotions , change the structural shape of the brain . The prefrontal areas associated with empathy, cooperation, and emotional regulation develop differently depending on the cultural environment,” she explains.

“It's not just about the brain; there are genes that are turned on or off depending on the environment. And culture is one of our most powerful environments . The SRGAP 2 gene, linked to the expansion of the neocortex, underwent key duplications just as our ancestors were beginning to display cultural behaviors.”

The expert explains how culture affects genes: "The phenomenon of epigenetics demonstrates that certain cultural habits, such as chronic social stress, diet, or violence, can leave chemical marks on our genes that are passed on to the next generation. What one generation experiences culturally can alter the way the genes of the next are expressed, as if the experience were burned into the molecules."

"This completely redefines what we've understood by inheritance, because we no longer just inherit DNA; we inherit structures and ideas, we inherit culture, and that culture, in turn, changes who we are," Antón concludes.