A caveat: The discovery of neurobiological correlates of IQ cannot be construed as evidence that IQ is determined by genes and fixed at birth. Most research favors the view that IQ scores are influenced both by genes and experience (like almost all human traits). Further, recent behavioral research has show that intensive training with adults can increase IQ-type scores.
These intriguing findings on intelligence are only the latest to emerge from the new strategy of using the resting mind to help discover the functional organization of the human brain. Early reports of such resting brain activity around 1995 were viewed skeptically, but many findings since 2000 that relate well to other kinds of neuroscience knowledge have made the study of resting-brain connectivity an exciting research area, in subjects ranging from human infants to primates. In at-rest studies, children or patients do not have to perform complex tasks (or any tasks). So at-rest scans are proving useful for a wide range of studies examining development and clinical disorders. Indeed, many researchers are now mining old data sets with resting periods from scanning sessions, retroactively transforming a modest control condition into a cutting-edge brain analysis. Moreover, because resting scans involve no specific task, they are readily pooled across sites into large data bases.
Already, striking differences have been observed in the patterns of resting connectivity found in autism and schizophrenia. People with autism exhibit reduced connectivity in the brain network most associated with introspection. That lower connectivity may reflect their reduced ability to focus on their own thoughts and feelings, and reduced appreciation of the inner mental worlds of others. In contrast, people with schizophrenia have exaggerated connectivity in this network. This could reflect problems of self-reference and paranoia in schizophrenia, with an overactive network encouraging patients to interpret events in their environment as having special relevance to themselves. Characteristic changes in the resting brain have been found also in depression and Alzheimer’s disease, raising the possibility that resting-brain scans may help with diagnoses.
Beyond disease, and beyond IQ, these exciting discoveries about the resting human brain raise the question of whether we are gaining the novel capacity to measure quantitatively our most intimate and unique inner selves. Are you most “you” when you’re racing through work? Or when you’re simply sitting in a chair, mind adrift, just being?
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19 Comments
Add CommentFascinating. I'd be interested to know what instructions the subjects receive when asked to "rest" their brains.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe relationship between long range connection strength and IQ also seems related to the finding last year that training visual and aural working memory at the same time can transfer to intelligence improvement... (dual n-back training and working memory)
Brilliant! !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow come the authors did not use the words "Default network" of the resting brain?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat a surprise...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously a "resting" brain would be a better pointer towards the inner self. Once an order(interaction) is given (external stimuli) the training(experiences) start to muddle the waters even more. Basically its easier to see a reflection in a pond service if a stone hasn't been thrown in it.
obviously,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisits easier to see an image in a pond if the stone hasn't been thrown in ...
and thats the mind mulling over something... hehehe
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was tryng to think of ways to express the "subnet" of the consciousness as it relaxes and thinks it's idle thoughts, and how that network topology might differ from when someone's working on something specific. Razausman's "stone in the pond" analogy is excellent! Thank you!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's especiallly useful to consider specific guided thinking on any subject as a stone, and realize that the location of the stones will undoubtedly lead to strengthened network connections, creating a self re-enforcing feedback loop that some people experience as cognitively 'spinning' or 'churning' on something (whether it be math problems or relationship problems). Their brains temporarily take on autistic characteristics.
Speaking of semi-sequitors, this makes me wonder what effect anti-anxiety meds have on autistic children, and whether a regular dose would allow more normal cognitive development, sicne they wouldn't be fixating on the internal stones they cotninually toss.
Ha, it even explains whi epiphanies occur in bathtubs! :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is GOLD! This idea supplies an important piece that was missing from Jeff Hawkings' ON INTELLIGENCE. This might also be the reason why 'image streaming' seem to increase IQ.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow, suppose that in the course of self-education, some bright youth experiment only modestly with drugs, noting inconsistencies in their usual mental rest state. The experience of intensified introspection may become overloaded with different timings for long distance brain connections thus, perhaps, causing marked adaptational shifts in behaviour with new altruistic traits, when an initial goal may have been simply to augment affiliation through less preoccupation to be better liked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe phrase " Further, recent behavioral research has show that intensive training with adults can increase IQ-type scores" is oK if we aplly it to all people, but always, people with higher QI will get better scores them the another with lower QI
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe phrase " Further, recent behavioral research has show that intensive training with adults can increase IQ-type scores" is oK if we aplly it to all people, but always, people with higher QI will get better scores them the another with lower QI.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> It's especiallly useful to consider specific guided thinking on any subject as a stone, and realize that the location of the stones will undoubtedly lead to strengthened network connections, creating a self re-enforcing feedback loop...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, it's the other way around. By NOT focusing on an issue, you allow the brain to make random associations. The next comment talked about ideas in bathtubs, and that's the point. Many brilliant ideas occur in the shower (or the tub) when the mind isn't focused and you're in safe pleasant surroundings. The mind wanders.
Intentional (or purposive) thinking (such as solving a math problem) works because the mind blocks out irrelevant issues in order to focus on rules and process. However, that means brilliant insights are also blocked out.
You ended with the following with some very interesting Socratic questions:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1 - "Are you most “you” when you’re racing through work?" ...Or ...
2 - "When you’re simply sitting in a chair, mind adrift, just being?"
What I am most interested in is .... a) If the brain can be likened to as the secondary field of a mind-brain inductive intelligent trans-former ... and b) the "Mind" [mind adrift] serves as the primary field inducing info-electro-magnetic wave patterns into the secondary field ... then does it not make intuitive sense that a) we need to silence the brain ... b) in order to listen to the effects of when – and as you put it ... c) "we are most we." :-)
I would love to hear from those working in the research arena seeking to better understand and algorithmically model the mind-brain field of mutual inductive resonance. This is my passion” By mapping the innermost IEMF patterns of (silent brain) mind states ... can we uncover and thus map and model the operating system of the mind of humanity ... and all living forces of the universe?
Lawrence Carson
Boise, Idaho
ljohncarson@msn.com
Makes me wonder if there's a correlation to be found between IQ and long showers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisiBrain by Gary Small reports less long distance connections with people who play video games. Does this mean less intelligent people play video games, or do video games make people stupid?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if what kinds of expectations patients had when going into the MRI affect the "resting" activity of the brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd like to know if they find any relationship between a patient's expectations before going into the MRI and the "resting" brain activity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi'd like to see the relationship between intelligence and creativity, if there is any way of measuring the latter.
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