Well-connected brains

Well-connected brains make you smarter in older age

May 24, 2012

Core subnetwork (PNAS)

Older people with robust brain “wiring” — nerve fibers that connect different, distant brain areas — can process information quickly and that this makes them generally smarter, University of Edinburgh research suggests.

According to the findings, joining distant parts of the brain together with better wiring improves mental performance, suggesting that intelligence is not found in a single part of the brain.

However a loss of condition of this wiring or “white matter” — the billions of nerve fibers that transmit signals around the brain — can negatively affect our intelligence by altering these networks and slowing down our processing speed. The research shows for the first time that the deterioration of white matter with age is likely to be a significant cause of age-related cognitive decline.

The research team used three different brain imaging techniques in compiling the results, including two that have never been used before in the study of intelligence. These techniques measure the amount of water in brain tissue, indicate structural loss in the brain, and show how well the nerve fibers are insulated./.../