Pixilated brain: At the bottom, an MRI image shows a slice of the human brain. At the top is shown a magnified portion of this section, created using diffusion imaging. To create the image, scientists measured the direction of the water diffusion in brain tissue. The "flower petals" at each point show the directions of fastest diffusion. These are aligned along the neural pathways of the brain, because water diffuses directionally along the well-insulated neural wires that carry electrical signals. The different directions of diffusion are color-coded red, green, and blue. In this example, the bright red areas reveal the thick fiber tract, called the corpus callosum, which transfers information between the left and right sides of the brain.
David Shattuck, Arthur Toga, Paul Thompson/UCLA
The integrity of neural wiring is a big factor in determining intelligence. It's also inheritable.
New research suggests that the layer of insulation coating neural wiring in the brain plays a critical role in determining intelligence. In addition, the quality of this insulation appears to be largely genetically determined, providing further support for the idea that IQ is partly inherited.
The findings, which result from a detailed study of twins' brains, hint at how ever-improving brain-imaging technology could shed light on some of our most basic characteristics.
"The study answers some very fundamental questions about how the brain expresses intelligence," says Philip Shaw, a child psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health, in Bethesda, MD, who was not involved in the research.
The neural wires that transmit electrical messages from cell to cell in the brain are coated with a fatty layer called myelin. Much like the insulation on an electrical wire, myelin stops current from leaking out of the wire and boosts the speed with which messages travel through the brain--the higher quality the myelin, the faster the messages travel. These myelin-coated tracts make up the brain's white matter, while the bodies of neural cells are called grey matter.
White matter is invisible on most brain scans, but a recently developed variation of magnetic resonance imaging, called diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI), allows scientists to map the complex neural wiring in our brains by measuring the diffusion of water molecules through tissue. Thanks to the fatty myelin coating, water diffuses along the length of neural wires, while in other types of brain tissue it moves in all different directions. Researchers can calculate the direction of fastest diffusion at each point in the brain and then construct a picture of the brain's fiber tracts. A well-organized brain has well-functioning myelin, in which water can be seen clearly moving along specific paths. "Diffusion imaging gives a picture of how intact your brain connections are," says Paul Thompson, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who lead the study.
Thompson and his colleagues took DTI scans of 92 pairs of fraternal and identical twins. They found a strong correlation between the integrity of the white matter and performance on a standard IQ test. "Going forward, we are certainly going to think of white matter structure as an important contributor of intelligence," says Van Wedeen, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was also not involved in the research. "It also changes how you think about what IQ is measuring," says Wedeen. The research was published last month in the Journal of Neuroscience.
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The really smart people have CAT7 wiring in their brain. I'm only about a CAT4.
from now on if someone calls you a fathead you should take it as a compliment?
This could change everything if we could find away to increase myelin. God knows I need it.
My thoughts exactly. When do I get to buy some intelligence pills?
You've been able to buy them for decades, and we've known they're intelligence pills and powder for six years. They have nothing to do with myelin, though. It's just creatine.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14561278
Omega-3 fatty acids make up a significant portion of all cell membranes, which myelin is made of. This may be the cause of the modest effect of EPA and DHA (the two most important omega-3s) have in improving memory and cognition. However, DHA and EPA have other effects, too.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=880356&jid=&volumeId=&issueId=04&aid=880352&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=&fulltextType=AC&fileId=S000711450000043X
I have not read the paper yet, but I don't think that the authors are saying that increased intelligence results from increased myelin per se. Myelin is assoicated with the axons of neurons, so the increased white matter could be due to increased numbers of neurons and/or increased connectivity between adjacent areas. It would, however, be nice if all you needed to do was just pop some omega-3 fatty acid pills and boost your IQ.
that increased intelligence results from exercising your brain. Neurons die off if the pathway is not used. they do form new interconnections.
So this would mean that the omegas are like the building material, not a carpenter. If you are not creating new connections, doesn't matter how much omega fatty acids around, they would be sitting like unused piles of bricks.
But free fatty acids in the brain are also like the maintenance supplies for the brain: if they are lacking then normal repair mechanisms would not work.
So just eating them won't make you smarter. They would be likely to help preserve anything that does make you smarter, such as using your brain in ways that increase neural connections, which these might help preserve.
And they may help prevent de-myelination. Many neural problems have a base in the fatty layer decaying. Just like previous poster mentioned cat4 wire, if the insulation on network wire decays, similarly you could have problems in your network.
One third of the weight of your brain is fatty acids so the supply of these is nothing to be scoffed at.
And your brain uses a huge percent of the total energy needs of your body, so its health and maintenance are serious concerns, and sub-optimal energy / materials in any form could lead to decay.
Finally, we've found recently that some animals DO grow new neurons during their adult life, birds among these. And the just announced results from radioactive carbon tests also show the same for cardiac muscle.
I strongly suggest to all taxpayers, regardless of their political party affiliations, that we make this a mandatory pre-screening test for ALL elected officials. Based on the recent SNAFU'S we're paying for, it seems that a simple brain scan may alleviate BRAIN FARTS later one when we start paying out the nose to fix problems.
It would be interesting to scan all the Congressional and Senatorial officials to get an average measurement of how intelligent these guys and gals really are. Individually they may be fairly smart, but collectively they're as dumb as rocks.
By averaging the results we can come up with an Intelligence Quota for the goverment of the US. Make the Govenors and their cabinets do it too, so we can weed out the stupid ones before they get into higher office.
all this article tells us is that people with a higher quality myelin tend to have a higher iq which doesn't mean much. Those that end up with a weaker "wiring" system can still be intelligent and those with a lower IQ can still have the smarts in other areas such as politics. were just stuck with the stupid politicians until they do something really absurd and get themselves recognized as the "dumb ass politician".
I personally wouldn't send an IQ 150 scientist doing politics, this would seem a real waste when I think a 100 IQ is enough for that. So, the best usage for some tests would be to assess if the guy is not a complete moron or unable to think at all, thus avoiding future GWB situations :)
I guess the lesson here is if you want cognitive umph, choose your parents and don't damage your noodle. Also, reading is fundamental because a mind is a terrible thing.
Did the better myelin make them smarter, or did the smarter ones develop better myelin as a response to using their brains more? Imagine a study showing that athletes have better muscles than average people, and that the athletes' parents also seem to have better muscles. Is this genetics, or upbringing, or is it maybe even epigenetics? My guess is: some of each.
Anyone know what test they are using to measure their IQ and Intelligence? Because in the insert:
"but the tests used in the study are measures of general intelligence, including verbal skills, math, and logic"
Because everytime I think about math test I think about Albert Einstein and his dyslexia in math early in his youth. I wonder what his scores on that test would be versus his myelin counts. I just thinking that would be an interesting development. What is everyone thoughts on it?
Einstein's brain was found to be SMALLER than usual.
However the interconnections between neurons was found to be much denser than average.
I've been following the Myelin side of the brain for some time. I believe myelination pathways, which develop more gradually than the connection network, help explain the static nature of personality and persistent behavior patterns. I haven't seen as much on intelligence effects, but it seems quite similar.
Since we can train for myelin development in sports and music, we should be able to move the needle in personality and intelligence as well.
I write on brain / myelin issues regularly, using this type of research as my guide.
Best -- Charles
I'm no scientist, but my family is CMT-ridden. I'm sure you know that CMT is peripheral nerve myelin deficiency-related. I wonder if there's some kind of genetic predisposition towards myelinization in the brain vs in the peripherals, because we're pretty heavily wired in the brain area, sometimes to the point of neurosis . I've always referred to it as being "Highly wired with bad wiring."
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2 Comments
Why use "intelligence" and "IQ" interchangeably?
"IQ" refers to specific test results, whereas this article's content concerns intelligence. The terms are not interchangeable, though one can sell a lot of books (e.g., Herrnstein, Murray, 1994) by presuming that they are.
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