Bigger Brains Make Smarter People Study Says

udderly writes "People with bigger brains are smarter according to a Virginia Commonwealth University industrial and organizational psychologist, Michael A. McDaniel, Ph.D. McDaniel, who is a professor in management at VCU's School of Business. He reviewed 26 previous studies comparing brain size and intelligence and found that brain volume has a strong correlation to intelligence. According to McDaniel, 'for all age and sex groups, it is now very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related.' So, how big of a hat do you wear?"

Comments

Savants

[headkase]

If you thought as good about everything as a savant thought about one thing, I believe it would show that with proper organization a well wired smaller mass can be capable of greater predictions of the environment than a larger brain mass.
But considering that we all share the same assembly instructions, apples to apples maybe bigger is better.

Re:Savants

[Ungrounded Lightning]

If you thought as good about everything as a savant thought about one thing, I believe it would show that with proper organization a well wired smaller mass can be capable of greater predictions of the environment than a larger brain mass.

On the other hand there is an experiment that seem to indicate that cognitive ability is largely a function of number of instances of some simple pattern:

Experiment was run in a Y maze, i.e. subject placed in one end, food reward at one of the other two ends. Three subject types: Particular breed of fish, turtles (with about twice the brain mass), and a third I'll get to later.

Initially food is always on, say, the right at first. Subject learns to turn right. Once this learning is established, the maze is reversed. Subject must UNlearn "food on right" and learn "food on left". Measure number of trials to do this. Repeat.

With the fish it takes a while for them to figure out the food is now on the left. And then takes them about the same number trials to learn it's back on the right. You can do reversals until your grant runs out and it still takes them about the same number of trials to figure out that it's switched.

With the turtles, after a few reversals they suddenly get the concept of reversals. After that they catch on very quickly that the maze has swapped again.

Now the interesting part: Take embryos of the fish species. Remove the prototype brain tissue from one and insert it into another. Let it mature. Result is a chimera fish with a double-mass fish brain of apparently the normal organization - and about the size of the brain of the turtle.

Run these through the test and they learn reversals just like the turtle did. They "get it" with what is apparently just more-of-the-same rather than anything special.

With respect to savants: It's pretty clear that different areas of the brain are specialized for different things. So savants having normal-sized brains and being exceptionally good at one thing is not at odds with the idea that it's more neurons that make more smarts. They could as easily have given over more of their brain tissue to processing that specialty - possibly at the cost of starving other functions of neurons.

On the other hand, that doesn't eliminate other possibilities, such as better organization of that part of the brain, or more attention given to the subject in a more general-purpose system. The big-brained fish could be expected to have more of any specialized processor sections, as well as more "general-purpose cpu resources" to distribute (as "attention") to tasks like cracking the maze problem.

Brrrraaaaiiiiinnnnnsssss

[InstantCrisis]

I had thought this correlation was old news, and that the direction of causality was that people who use their brains more develop more ganglia, etc.... Neural plasticity continues throughout one's life. People who don't use their brains experience faster brain shrinkage when their older, putting them at higher risk for dementia. This is why the elderly are advised to do crossword puzzles and whatnot (from the nun and related studies).

What's disturbing is the age at which our brains start to shrink and our cognitive functioning declines. I've done a lot of neuropsych assessment, and the norm tables for the instruments show turning points (depending on what is being measured) as early as age 17, and as late as the late 20s. I believe I remember reading that brain size significantly begins shrinking in the early 30s, and the rate is positively correlated with blood pressure.

Use it or lose it. Avoid salt.