The Interplay of Nature and Nurture
A question as old as time: Is our personality a result of our genetic programming (nature) or our surroundings (nurture)? Newer findings suggest that there might be a third variable in the mix: Noise. We all share a genetic programming for making a human brain, but the way that program plays out might be affected by random processes unique to each person – even in identical twins.
“In this talk, I will present an overview of the recent efforts to shed light on what makes you the way you are and what makes each of us different from everyone else.”
Dr. Kevin Mitchell
is an Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin.
His research interest is the genetic programming specifying the wiring of the brain and its relevance to variation in human faculties, psychiatric disease and perceptual conditions like synaesthesia.
He is the author of “INNATE – How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are” (Princeton University Press, 2018), writes the Wiring the Brain blog and is on Twitter. Currently, he is working on a new book for Princeton University Press.
