More on the physical basis of IQ

High IQ Kids Have Different Brain Growth Pattern: “The brains of high IQ children show a distinct pattern of development, according to a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. The cortex, or outer mantle of the brain, starts out thinner and thickens more rapidly in very intelligent children, say the researchers. It then peaks at around 11 or 12 years old before thinning rapidly in the late teens. This developmental pattern, rather than sheer brain size, may have more to do with intelligence said Philip Shaw, lead author of the NIH study. He said the changes are subtle and what is driving them is a mystery. The scientists discovered the association between intelligence and brain development by taking MRI scans of 307 healthy children and teenagers, aged 5-19, over 2-year intervals as they grew up.

Even alkalinity differs: “Researchers at England’s John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford, report that our brain’s pH--how acidic or alkaline it is--might be a clue to our intelligence. Using a technique called magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), researchers examined the brains of 42 British schoolboys. Just as its close cousin MRI creates vivid images of a person’s internal anatomy, MRS lets doctors study an organ’s chemistry. When the British scientists compared the lads’ IQ scores with their MRS results, they uncovered an intriguing relationship: the smarter the boy, the more alkaline his brain. Although the relationship between alkalinity and aptitude didn’t hold for every aspect of intelligence, verbal skills and reading comprehension seemed especially linked to pH, the Radcliffe team reports in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

Posted by jonjayray on Friday, March 31, 2006 at 09:51 AM in IQ and Heredity
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Posted by John S Bolton on March 31, 2006, 10:46 AM | #

I wonder if this is related to juvenilization. A slowdown in physical maturation appears to go with points up in IQ. At the same time, the precocious appear more mature than their years in knowledge, judgement and seriousness. The physical pruning back of additional connections is said to be related to the closing-out of nonsensical associations and beliefs.
Average teenagers seem to long to be in a regulation groove, in terms of their repertoire of general ideas. They are confirmed on schedule. It would be not dumbfounding if it turned out that genes influenced strongly the brightest, to keep their options open longer, when more advanced arguments come more readily, to help them crystallize their inventory of ideas.

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