The Brain Biology of Brilliance You probably know that IQ measures intelligence, but what makes somebody a genius? The development of neuro-imaging has enabled scientists to start studying regions in the brain to unearth the biology of brilliance. And if you have ever wondered if size really does matter (?!) then read on.... Smarter brains do tend to be bigger – at least in certain locations. Part of Einstein’s’ parietal lobe (see picture here left: at the top of the head, behind the ears – the blue & red areas) was 15% wider than a sample of 35 men of normal intelligence. This area is critical for visual and mathematical thinking. It is also falls within a region of the brain thought to be necessary for superior intelligence. This region includes part of the parietal and frontal lobes as well as a structure called the anterior cingulate (see picture here below – the blue area). IQ tests Intelligence tests measure IQ and most IQs fall in the range from 70-130. The average IQ is 100. If your IQ is 115+ you are classed as bright, at 130+ you are gifted, and at 145+ you are highly gifted. Efficient Processing Over the years brain scientists have gathered evidence suggesting that high intelligence arises from faster information processing in the brain.  Some psychologists have proposed that unusually efficient neural circuitry underlies this speed in the brains of gifted individuals. Experimental psychologist Werner Krause (University of Jena, Germany) has found that highly gifted people solve puzzles more elegantly than other people do: they very quickly identify the key information in them and the best way to solve them. These people make optimal use of the brain’s limited working memory, the short-term buffer that holds items just long enough for the memory to process them. Richard Haier from the University of California has used positron-emission tomography (the ‘PET scan’) to support these findings. PET scans measure the glucose metabolism of cells so can indicate how hard the brain cells are working. When 8 young men were scanned whilst performing a nonverbal abstract reasoning task for 30 minutes it was found that the better their performance on the task, the lower the metabolic rate in widespread areas of the brain. This suggests that efficient processing may underlie brilliance. Later a similar experiment was done in which a group of volunteers who had a below-average IQ showed a higher glucose metabolism. This suggests that slower minds operate less economically. This idea of efficient processing has received further support using EEG (electroencephalograph) measurements. Researchers from the University of Graz (Austria) used the EEG to detect electrical brain activity at precise time points in 27 people while they took two reasoning tests. One of these tests was given before a test-related training session, and the second test after the training. During the second test, the frontal brain regions – many of which are involved in higher order intelligence skills – were less active in the more intelligent individuals. In fact, the higher the person’s mental ability, the bigger the dip in activity. This means that the brains of brighter individuals streamline the processing of new information faster than those of their less intelligent counterparts. Grey Matter & White Matter However, gifted brains are not always in a state of relative calm. In some situations, they appear to be more energetic, not less, than those of people of more ordinary intellect. These ‘energy consuming’ brain areas have been found to correspond to areas containing more grey matter. (Grey matter is responsible for processing information from the sensory organs; white matter is the tissue through which the messages pass from different areas of grey matter).  This implies that the gifted have been endowed with literally more ‘brain power’. In a study of 47 adults Richard Haier found a link between the amount of grey matter and higher IQ in 10 separate brain regions, including 3 in the frontal lobe and 2 in the parietal lobe (see the first colourful picture again). Other scientists have also reported more white matter in these same regions among people with higher IQs. These results point to a widely distributed – but discrete – neural basis of intelligence. Use of fMRI Scans The recent development of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI scans) has added even more information to uncover what happens in bright people. Functional fMRI detects brain activity by tracking the flow of oxygenated blood in brain tissue. In 2003, Jeremy Gray scanned with fMRI 48 subjects whilst they completed hard tasks that taxed working memory. They found higher levels of activity in prefrontal and parietal brain regions in those people which had higher IQ scores. fMRI was again used in 2005 by Michael Boyle (Texas Tech University) to map the brains of young male mathematical geniuses while they mentally rotated objects to try to match them to a target item. Compared to adolescent boys of average maths ability, the brains of the talented boys were more metabolically active – and that activity was concentrated in the parietal lobes, the frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate. Is this all starting to sound familiar? Are Brighter Brains Harder Working or Not? No one is as yet sure why some experiments indicate that a bright brain is a hardworking one, whereas others suggest that it is one that can afford to relax. Haier – who has found higher metabolic brain activity in cleverer subjects on some of his studies, but not in others – speculates that one reason could relate to the difficulty of the task. When a problem is very complex, even a gifted person’s brain has to work to solve it. The brain’s relatively high metabolic rate in this instance might reflect greater engagement with the task. If that task was out of reach for someone of average intellect, the person’s brain might be relatively inactive because of an inability to tackle the problem. Yet a bright individual’s brain might nonetheless solve a less difficult problem efficiently and with little effort as compared with someone who has a lower IQ. Practice Makes Perfect Whatever the Biology of Brilliance, being brilliant does not ensure accomplishment and success – it only increases the probability. Even for academic achievement, IQ is not as important as self-discipline and a willingness to work hard. Studies show over & over that practice and perseverance contribute more to accomplishment than being smart does. A 2007 study by Aljoscha Neubauer from the University of Graz (who also did the EEG experiments above) on 90 tournament chess players showed that practice and experience are more important to expertise than general intelligence is. And yet people often think of chess players as being highly intelligent. Even Einstein’s spectacular success as a mathematician and physicist cannot be attributed to intellectual prowess alone. His education, dedication to the problem of relativity, willingness to take risks, and support from family and friends probably helped to push him ahead of any contemporaries with comparable intelligence gifts. As Einstein himself said, “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”, which leads me to wonder about the power of that 1%, and to what IS inspiration. And those seem to be good subjects for another issue of ‘On the Border’…..!!! References M. Wilke et al. Bright Spots: Correlation of Grey Matter Volume with IQ in a Normal Pediatric Population. Neuroimage, 2003, volume 20, number 1, pages 202-215. A. L. Duckworth & M. E. Seligman. Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents. Psychological Scinece, 2005, volume 16, number 12, pages 939-944. C. Hoppe & J. Stojanovic. High-Aptitude Minds. Scientific American Mind, 2008, volume 19, number 4, pages 61-67. P. Shaw et al. Intellectual Ability and Cortical Development in Children and Adolescents. Nature, 2006, volume 440, pages 676-679. P. E. Ross. The Expert Mind. Scientific American 2006, volume 205, number 2, pages 64-71. R. E. Jung & R. J. Haier. The Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory of Intelligence: Converging Neuroimaging Evidence. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 2007, volume 30, number 2, pages 135-154.