According to new research published in the journal Cell, it is not simply that we have more neurons – it’s the way these neurons work.

“In human neurons, there is more electrical division,” co-author Mark Harnett, assistant professor of brain and cognitive science at MIT, said, “This allows these units to be more independent, which may lead to increased capacity Computing of individual neurons. ”

There are things called dendrites – the branching structures of the neuron responsible for transmitting information  from one cell to another.

Similar to transistors in a computer, the vast networks of neurons communicate constantly with each other, and this is what controls our thoughts and behavior.

To find out exactly how long the ramifications affect their electrical properties, the researchers compared

However, as electrical signals move along the ramifications and away from the cell body, they become weaker.

Because human grafts need a longer length to reach the first layer of the fifth layer, the team found that they also sent a weaker signal compared to the rats.

They also discovered a difference in the density of ion channels that control the flow of current between rats and human samples. While the number of ion channels remained the same, the density was lower in human samples, which Harnett says can help explain some differences in electrical activity.

Now, scientists need to determine the effect of these differences in electrical activity on human intelligence, although Harnett suspects they allow individual neurons to perform more complex calculations because more areas of grafts can affect the strength of incoming signals.

Does the larger brain mean higher intelligence?
This question was posed on the Stanford University’s Neuroscience Center Web site:

“This question is a controversial question; the relationship between brain size and IQ among humans or other living groups is not clearly resolved. Humans like to consider themselves kings of the animal kingdom in terms of brain size compared to body size and enormous cognitive abilities. In fact, other animals, such as elephants or whales, have larger brains than humans. As humans, we have the same ratio between brain and body size as those between the brain and the body.

Scientists have created a third measure of the size of the brain called encephalization quotient, or the coefficient of stigmatization, which is the ratio between the real brain mass and the denatured mass of an animal based on the assumption that larger animals require less brain matter relative to their size Compared to small animals. Indeed, according to this measure, humans have the largest coefficient of taste (7.5), which is much larger than that of the dolphin (5.3) and the mouse (0.5).

But does having a bigger brain mean your intelligence level is higher?

Some studies will answer yes. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has enabled scientists to compare the size of the brain to some human beings and sought to link these measurements to the intelligence of those humans.

Statistical meta-analyzes of 26 different studies showed that the level of association between brain size and intelligence ranged from 0.3-0.4. More recently, genome-wide association studies on more than 20,000 human samples have revealed the discovery of a gene associated with the determination of an individual’s intelligence level.

According to the results of the study, the difference in the gene (HMGA2), which is responsible for the composition of the protein that regulates DNA copies and cell growth, is associated with increased internal volume of the skull and IQ as well.

To be honest, I find this correlation somewhat confusing. It is clear that there is a Mai that affects the level of intelligence more than the size of the brain otherwise Albert Einstein was the world’s feat and the average brain size is unlucky. It is important to think about how to define intelligence and to keep in mind that the studies mentioned above show a correlation between brain volume as a result of an individual in the IQ test.

Although this test is the most widely used in history, it can not in any case measure all aspects of human intelligence nor be a constant display of all cognitive abilities of individuals.

Fortunately, more information can be detected when we look at the brain in more detail. Many scientists now believe that the complication of the cellular and molecular structure of neural connections or synapses is the true determinant of the computational power of the brain.

This view is also supported by the findings that IQ is more closely related to frontal and gray matter volumes, which contain more dense numbers of neurons and synapses, than to the total size of the brain. Another research comparing the proteins at the ends of neural engagement in different organisms suggests that the components of synapses at the molecular level have a huge impact on IQ during the evolutionary history of organisms.

So even though having a large brain is a predictor of greater intelligence, IQ probably depends more on the extent that different parts of the human brain communicate effectively with one another. ”

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