Posted on 03/30/2006 2:30:17 AM PST by Pharmboy
The brains of highly intelligent children develop in a different pattern from those with more average abilities, researchers have found after analyzing a series of imaging scans collected over 17 years.
The discovery, some experts expect, will help scientists understand intelligence in terms of the genes that foster it and the childhood experiences that can promote it.
"This is the first time that anyone has shown that the brain grows differently in extremely intelligent children," said Paul M. Thompson, a brain-imaging expert at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The finding is based on 307 children in Bethesda, Md., an affluent suburb of Washington. Starting in 1989, they were given regular brain scans using magnetic resonance imaging, a project initiated by Dr. Judith Rapoport of the National Institute of Mental Health.
This set of scans has been analyzed by Philip Shaw, Dr. Jay Giedd and others at the institute and at McGill University in Montreal. They looked at changes in the thickness of the cerebral cortex, the thin sheet of neurons that clads the outer surface of the brain and is the seat of many higher mental processes.
The general pattern of maturation, they report in Nature today, is that the cortex grows thicker as the child ages and then thins out. The cause of the changes is unknown, because the imaging process cannot see down to the level of individual neurons.
But basically the brain seems to be rewiring itself as it matures, with the thinning of the cortex reflecting a pruning of redundant connections.
The analysis was started to check out a finding by Dr. Thompson: that parts of the frontal lobe of the cortex are larger in people with high I.Q.'s. Looking at highly intelligent 7-year-olds, the researchers said they were surprised to find that the cortex
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good point.
"My husband and I used to be intelligent. Then we had kids."
LOL There is hope, you will be amazed as your children discover that mom and dad are not nearly as dumb as they think. I am dealing with the self control of not saying the obvious "see I told you so".
"We were not told of the "race" of the children only that they were of wealth."
whether intentional or not (and this IS a NYT story) the reference to Bethesda was probably misleading. Bethesda IS an affluent suburb. It is also the home of the National Institutes of Health - where the studies were done. It is more likely that the children in the study are from beyond Bethesda. There are many middle class and poor neighborhoods within a 10 mile radius of Bethesda and the NIH.
The scan differences are facts, the explanations are theoretical.
Research has repeatedly shown that what we call "intelligence" is, for the most part, determined by genes--the estimates are 60-80%. This is NOT to say that environment does not play a role--sometimes very important. Environment is likely to be a larger factor in intelligence, behavior and health when it is at an extreme: either awful or incredibly good. The "average" environment is less likely to override genetic influences. Just my opinion.
Not to, er, intelligent people but the Marxists still insist we're all born with a tabula rasa.
bfl
"The analysis was started to check out a finding by Dr. Thompson: that parts of the frontal lobe of the cortex are larger in people with high I.Q.'s."
"One goal of the study was to establish normal development patterns, to diagnose what goes awry in children with schizophrenia or attention deficits."
Interesting article.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1607241/posts
Thanks for the link. Yes, very interesting!
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