Intelligence and Neuroscience
Intelligence and Neuroscience – The human brain is obviously the organ that serves as a biological basis for human intelligence. They show statistical associations between biological and psychometric or other measures of intelligence. They do not establish causal relations.
Intelligence and Brain Size
One-line of research looks at the relationship of brain size or volume to intelligence. The evidence proposes that, for humans, there is a modest but important statistical relationship between brain size and intelligence. The amount of gray matter in the brain is strongly associated with IQ in several areas of the frontal and temporal lobes. Though, the brain areas that are interrelated with IQ appear to fluctuate in men versus women.
- Frontal Areas are of reasonably more importance in women, whereas posterior areas are of moderately more importance in men, even if both genders are matched for intelligence. This conclusion opens the question of whether there are two dissimilar brain architectures in men versus women that both result in approximately equal levels of intelligence. It is important to note that the relationship between the brain size and intelligence does not appears across species. Slightly, what holds appears to be a relationship between intelligence and brain size, comparative to the rough general size of the organism.
Intelligence and Neurons
The expansion of electrical recording and imaging techniques offers some attractive possibilities. For example, complex-patterns of electrical activity in the brain, which are impelled by particular stimuli, appear to associate with scores on IQ tests. Numerous studies initially suggested that speed of transmission of neural impulses may associate with intelligence, as measured by IQ tests. A continuation study, conversely, failed to find a strong relation between neural-conduction velocity and intelligence.
According to this study conduction velocity was measured by neural-conduction speeds in a core nerve of the arm. Intelligence was measured by a Multi-Dimensional Aptitude Battery. Amazingly, neural-conduction velocity seems to be a more dominant predictor of IQ scores for men than for women. So gender differences may reason for some of the differences in the data.
Intelligence and Brain Metabolism
More topical work proposes that the flexibility of neural circuitry, relatively speed of conduction, is key. An unconventional approach to studying the brain suggests that neural proficiency may be related to intelligence. Such a method is based on studies of how the brain metabolizes glucose which is a simple sugar required for brain activity during mental activities. Higher intelligence associates with reduced levels of glucose metabolism throughout problem-solving tasks. That is, cleverer brains consume less sugar and hence expend less effort than less smart brains doing the same task. Additionally, cerebral efficiency increases as a result of learning on a comparatively complex task involving visuo-spatial manipulations., for example, the computer game Tetris.
As a result of practice, more intelligent participants not only show lower cerebral glucose metabolism generally but also show more precisely localized metabolism of glucose. In most of the areas of their brains, smarter participants show less glucose metabolism. However, in selected areas of their brains, supposed to be important to the task at hand, they show higher levels of glucose metabolism. Therefore, more intelligent participants might have learned how to use their brains more proficiently. They carefully emphasis their thought processes on a given task.
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