Is There a Correlation Between the Number of Brain Cells and IQ?-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Is There a Correlation Between the Number of Brain Cells and IQ?

Published:2020-09-16 Issue:1 Volume:31 Page:650-657
ISSN:1047-3211
Container-title:Cerebral Cortex
language:en
Short-container-title:

Author:

Songthawornpong Nicharatch¹,Teasdale Thomas W²,Olesen Mikkel V¹^ORCID,Pakkenberg Bente¹³

Affiliation:

1. Research Laboratory for Stereology and Neuroscience, Department of Neurology, Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg Hospital, DK-2400 Copenhagen, Denmark

2. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Copenhagen, DK-1353 Copenhagen, Denmark

3. Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

Abstract Our access to a unique material of postmortem brains obtained from decades of data collection enabled a stereological analysis of the neuron numbers and correlation of results with individual premorbid intelligence quotient (IQ) data. In our sample of 50 brains from men, we find that IQ does not correlate with the number of brain cells in the human neocortex and was only weakly correlated to brain weight. Our stereological examination extended to measures of several other parameters that might be of relevance to intelligence, including numbers of cerebral glial cells (astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia) and the volume of key areas in the gray and white matter and of the cerebral ventricles, also showing near-zero nonsignificant correlations to IQ.

Funder

Bispebjerg Research grant

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Subject

Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience,Cognitive Neuroscience

Link

http://academic.oup.com/cercor/article-pdf/31/1/650/34840750/bhaa249.pdf

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