About ten percent of the differences in intelligence between some people and others is due to theconnections between neurons in the lateral prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain, according to an investigation published in the magazineJournal of Neuroscience. Researchers have analyzed the intelligence of various individuals by scanning their brains while carrying out various activities.
Previous studies had shown that the activity of thelateral prefrontal cortexit can explain up to five percent of individual differences in intelligence. Now, the new work shows that the connections of this area with others are also very important. “The study suggests that to be intelligent you need, on the one hand, a lateral prefrontal cortex that does its job well and, on the other, that communicates effectively with the rest of the brain,” reports Todd Braver, one of the authors.
The researchers, from Washington University in St. Louis, obtained MRI images of the brains of several volunteers while they were resting or performing complex mental activities. As they explain in their work, while other regions of the brain make their own contribution to cognitive processes, the lateral prefrontal cortex helps tocoordinate these processes and maintain attention on the activitywhich is running.
Although much remains to be known about the function of these connections between neurons, the results of this research could have important implications for the future understanding of human intelligence.
