Where does theintelligence? What determines our IQ? According to an American study in which the Spanish Roberto Colom has also participated, general intelligence is based on effective communication between a series of specific regions of both cerebral hemispheres.
Scientists have long debated whether there is ageneral intelligence (g factor)or several. Ralph Adolphs, from the California Institute of Technology, and his colleagues from the universities of Iowa, Southern California and the Autonomous Madrid are supporters of the first option. And to try to locate that general intelligence they havestudiedthoroughlythe brains of 241 brain-injured patientswho had been given an intelligence test. Relating theyour IQ scorewith their injuries, neuroscientists have managed to tracea map of brain regions that affect intelligence.
Their results, published in the magazineProceedings of the National Academy of Science(PNAS), reveal that, instead of residing in a single structure,general intelligence is located a network of regions on both sides of the brain, specifically in the lower frontal lobe and the upper parietal lobe of the left hemisphere, with contributions from the right. And that the denser the connections between these areas, the greater the intelligence.
“Actually, the regions and connections that we find are pretty much in line with an existing theory calledparieto-frontal integration theory“Adolphs explains. This theory indicates that general intelligence depends on the brain’s ability to integrate and connect various types of processing, such as working memory, verbal and visuospatial processes ,?
