Advancement of Intelligence Research

An area of study that has consistently puzzled the minds of scientists is that of the brain. For something that has long been studied, very little is known about it, and what Is known is heavily debated.

One area of the brain that fascinates the minds of scientists is that of intelligence, and very recently researchers have made a breakthrough by discovering genes that impact an individual’s intelligence. A previously unknown area has had the doors blown wide open after this most recent study has found 40 additional regions that are associated with intelligence.

This most recent study collected information from 13 other studies, covering

the genomes of 78,000 individuals. To determine concrete results the researchers focused their studies on general intelligence and fluid intelligence, where they would attempt to find correlations between regions of the genome and test scores.

They studied these factors in two ways: the first was by analyzing individual base pairs, and the second was by analyzing clusters of base pairs in a single gene. When looking through the results of the individual base pairs, they found 336 differences which were found in 22 genes. Of the 22 genes that were linked to intelligence, 11 of these were not known before. When testing the base pairs as clusters in genes the results were much more prolific discovering 47 genes that influenced intelligence, and of the 47, 30 had not previously been known. In total, they discovered 52 new genes, 40 more than the previous study revealed.

With all this knowledge the scientists then had to determine its use and importance, which, sadly, does not look promising.  When analyzing how much these differences impact the intelligence of a person it is not very large, the variation only accounting for a 5% difference in intelligence.

Also, it is important to note that these genes do not solely influence one’s intelligence, in fact prior to knowing about how they influence one’s intelligence most of the genes had other purposes. The genes did influence educational achievement, but they also had weak ties to height, autism, and smoking cessation. Some genes also protected against mental illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia while also combating Alzheimer’s.

In addition to not solely being linked to intelligence, they were also connected with many different biological functions. Such variances confused the researchers since there was no correlation between the functions. Some controlled the death of neurons while others were involved in development.

Many people were confused by the results and do not understand how these help the determination of intelligence. One thing is certain though, future research will benefit greatly from this test.

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