Intelligence Linked To Brain's Gray Matter
U.S.
researchers said that human intelligence appears to be based on the volume
of gray matter tissue in certain regions of the brain.
Researchers
at the University of California, Irvine, said the most comprehensive structural
brain-scan study of intelligence to date has shown regions related to intelligence
are located throughout the brain, instead of in a single intelligence center,
such as the frontal lobe.
They used MRI
scans to obtain structural images of the brain in 47 normal adults who
also took standard intelligence quotient tests.
They also used
a technique called voxel-based morphometry, or VBM, to determine gray matter
volume throughout the brain, which they then correlated to IQ scores.
Though gray
matter amounts are vital to intelligence levels, the researchers were surprised
to find that only about 6 percent of all the gray matter in the brain appears
related to IQ.
"This may be
why one person is quite good at mathematics and not so good at spelling,
and another person, with the same IQ, has the opposite pattern of abilities,"
they said.
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