Medical Study SHows White Matter Correlations with IQ

[selfAdjoint]

http://cds.ismrm.org/ismrm-2002/PDF2/0427.PDF#search="diffusion tensor IQ"", by
V. J. Schmithorst, M. Wilke, B. J. Dardzinski, and S. K. Holland
Imaging Research Center, Children’s Hospital Medical Center Cincinnati, OH, USA,

uses Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) to check on the connection of cerebral white matter to measured (Wechsler) IQ in normal children.

A previous diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study on normal children found significant correlations of both fractional anisotropy (FA) and trace of the apparent diffusion coefficient (TADC) with age. Increasing FA with age was found primarily in the corticospinal tract, while decreasing TADC was found throughout the white matter. We
now aimed to assess a possible correlation of FA and TADC with
intelligence in a normal pediatric population.

ANd they found very strong correlations!

Our findings indicate a structural difference in specific white matter
areas between children with a higher and children with a lower IQ.
Children with a higher IQ have lower FA and higher TADC values
in specific white matter tracts. This could be caused by changes in
fiber diameter or in the temporal evolution of organization (e.g. by
the elimination of unnecessary / inefficient fibers). However, which
mechanism is ultimately responsible for our findings is at
present unclear.

You might also want to look at the plots shown at the link; The link is only two pages long (PDF).

I know that "IQ is not real" is a frequent and popular meme on this forum, but gee! how much evidence does it take?

 

[Tigers2B1]

Go take a look at the wikipedia IQ article. It has links to studies showing significant correlations of certain white matter / gray matter brain volume and locations and activity with IQ ... using fMRI, MRI, PET scans. Here's the link .. (ignore the unsourced politically motivated stuff if possible ;) )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient

 

[GCT]

I wonder how much the Weshler test is geared toward detecting mental retardation and brain anomalies relative to that of understanding "giftedness." I believe that its much more valid in the former, as treatment is usually subsequent upon testing an individual, however, one never really knows if someone is truly "gifted" and even if this term is designated to an individual it isn't really ever established. If an high IQ individual has a life of Buckminster Fuller for example, then we can say that perhaps, it is his IQ that has opened the doors for him so to speak. In summary, IQ tests are deemed to be valuable in detecting mental retardation, and when a protocol is necessary to place a student in a gifted program.

I don't advogate the concept of IQ for understanding what many people believe to be "gifteness." I know of so many people who strongly believe that they've been cheated out of life, because the parents had insisted on his/her giftedness, that is when they had enough of a consciousness to understand the situation as a whole. Thus they've lived a life of knowing nothing, while made to believe that they did, a delusion was placed upon them from the point of birth. Case in point is of a "genius" student born in a rather isolated part of the country (U.S.A.) who supposedly had a IQ score of +160, he entered the college world at an early age, however, it seems that he was still very naive at the time (his name was "Brandon" ____). He was easy to get along with, had a very innocent appearance, he didn't have a lot of close friends, but spent a lot of time pursuing small scale endeavors such as composing new age piano music. This individual, did not have the genius potential, in relevance to the creativity aspect, yet it seems that his parents were completely ignorant of this and had manipulated his life completely, the result of this is somewhat obvious to me, he shot himself in the head with a gun while alone in his room. Why didn't he commit suicide through the carbon monoxide route? Because, it was a personal statement, an expression of realization, it was his way of saying to his freak parents to "clean up your mess." In the several documentaries which I've encountered about this matter, everyone who knew him seemed rather shocked that he did kill himself. Ignorance is bliss...parents should know that when they bring a child into this world, it is a conscious being, or rather...it is supposed to be eventually. But in many cases it seems that most parents are zombies at best, in that they are totally oblivious and unaware that such a development is important, it is the connection that matters.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Wechsler is not skewed toward gifted. It is widely used and calibrated to give good results for the general population. You often see IQ cited in connection with giftedness, but that is just because those discussions used it. It has been used successfully across the entire range of population, at least above the level of instituionalized folks.