Brain imaging tell how intelligent you are

WASHINGTON: Brain imaging can predict how intelligence varies from exceptionally smart humans to the average ones, a new research has said. "Our research shows that connectivity with a particular part of the prefrontal cortex can predict how intelligent someone is," lead author Michael W Cole, a postdoctoral research fellow in cognitive neuroscience at Washington University said.

The study suggests that another 10% of individual differences in intelligence can be explained by

the strength of neural pathways connecting the left lateral prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain.

It has been pointed out that the brain's lateral prefrontal cortex, a region just behind the temple, is a critical hub for high-level mental processing, with activity levels there predicting another 5% of variation in individual intelligence.

The findings establish "global brain connectivity" as a new approach for understanding human intelligence.

The study is the first to provide compelling evidence that neural connections between the lateral prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain make a unique and powerful contribution to the cognitive processing underlying human intelligence, says Cole.

"This study suggests that part of what it means to be intelligent is having a lateral prefrontal cortex that does its job well; and part of what that means is that it can effectively communicate with the rest of the brain," study co-author Todd Braver said.