Your Brain Has a Hidden Rhythm, And It May Reveal How Smart You Are
The smarter you are, the more your brain is in sync with its own secret rhythm, a new study has found.
When your brain works particularly hard, different regions of the brain sync up as they work together to perform tasks that require a higher cognitive load. This is called theta connectivity, and a new study has found that not only is it highly flexible, adapting quickly to changing situations, but better brain coordination strongly correlates with cognitive ability.
"Specific signals in the midfrontal brain region are better synchronized in people with higher cognitive ability – especially during demanding phases of reasoning," says psychologist Anna-Lena Schubert of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany.
Related: Your Brain Emits a Secret Light That Scientists Are Trying to Read
Theta connectivity – synchronized activity between brain regions of slow waves in the band of 4 to 8 Hertz – is related to the brain's ability to pull itself together under mental load. A growing body of evidence suggests that it plays a significant role in cognitive function – a strong enough link that it may even show promise as a diagnostic tool.
Schubert and her colleagues wanted to investigate theta connectivity as a marker of cognitive control – the brain's ability to adapt and adjust thought, behavior, and emotion based on current tasks and contexts.
The researchers recruited 148 people between the ages of 18 and 60, and had them complete tests to assess their memory and intelligence.
Then, each study participant donned a non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) cap to record their brain activity, and was given three mentally demanding tasks to complete. These tasks had different rules.
In the first task, the participants were shown digits between one and nine, and had to indicate whether the number was higher or lower than five, or if the number was odd or even.
In the second task, the participants were shown Navon figures, and had to either identify the big shape, or the small shapes of which it was constructed.
Finally, in the third task, the participants were shown paired numbers and letters, and either had to indicate whether the number was more or less than five, or the letter was a vowel or a consonant.
None of the tasks alone are particularly difficult, but the researchers wanted to assess how quickly the participants adapted to a changing ruleset, and whether that was detectable in their theta brain waves.
To the researchers' surprise, not only were they able to see the brain coordinate in real-time to rapid changes in tasks, participants who had performed better on the intelligence and memory tests displayed stronger theta connectivity during these tasks.
"People with stronger midfrontal theta connectivity are often better at maintaining focus and tuning out distractions, be it that your phone buzzes while you're working or that you intend to read a book in a busy train station," Schubert says.
"We did not expect the relationship to be this clear."
They found that one of the keys to higher cognitive performance is not sustained attention, but the ability to switch tasks on the fly, adapting quickly as circumstances demand. The midfrontal region of the brain works together with other brain regions, not just to prepare for tasks, but to execute decisions.
"The results indicated that only theta connectivity during response-related processes, not during cue-evoked task-set reconfiguration, correlated with cognitive abilities," the researchers write in their paper. "These insights significantly advance theoretical models of intelligence, highlighting the critical role of specific aspects of cognitive control in cognitive abilities."
These findings not only help us understand the role brain coordination plays in cognition, they could open new avenues for brain research and even – one day – help inform new diagnostic techniques.
"Potential applications such as brain-based training tools or diagnostics are still a long way off," Schubert says. "But our study offers important groundwork for understanding how intelligence functions at a neural level."
The research has been published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Burnout Might Not Actually Be a Work Problem After All, Study Shows
Scientists Confirm Anti-Aging Drug Appears to Prolong Life in Animals
Scientists Beamed Light Right Through a Man's Head For The First Time
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tories slam obesity plan, urge farm tax rethink
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately says speaking to supermarkets is 'not the answer' to the UK's health problems as she argues that obesity is about personal responsibility. She goes on to criticise the government for threatening family farms with their tax policy while claiming to promote healthier living. .
Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
Woman plans trip to Europe as boyfriend's 'dying mother' battles cancer: 'Might be faking'
A personal drama has gone viral online as a young woman reached out to others for help in navigating her sticky travel situation. After a great deal of back and forth, she said she's now "refusing to help my boyfriend's dying mother while planning a trip to Europe" — and wondered what others thought. Fox News Digital reached out to a clinical psychologist for insight as people on Reddit weighed in on the drama. Describing herself as 25 years old, the woman said she lives with her boyfriend — and about a month ago, his mom "began claiming she's dying of cancer, but no diagnosis has been confirmed. Every hospital visit ends with her being sent home. A nurse even [said] she might be faking," the woman wrote. The mother asked to "stay one night" at the couple's small apartment, which "turned into a week of chaos," said the young woman. "The apartment smelled awful, everything had to be dark and silent, and she constantly demanded help," the woman wrote. Then the mother "suggested we move in with her, an hour from our jobs/school." The young woman said she's a full-time student currently holding two jobs, and she began "falling behind." Her boyfriend changed his full-time job to a fully remote position so he could care for his mother, the young woman added. The health updates "were always shifting," however, she said. "MRI, canceled surgery, then chemo postponed due to infection, then E. coli. Always a new reason. No clear diagnosis or paperwork," she continued. The young woman then described a scenario in which "we were supposed to take her to the ER … but we ended up staying 16 hours [at the mother's home] doing chores. I folded 420 clothing items, cleaned the whole house, and felt like her unpaid maid. Not a single please or thank you." She went on, "She was stalling to go to the ER, and when we finally got there at 5 a.m., she said she'd check herself in and sent us home. Three hours later, she called again, sobbing for help. She had been rejected by the ER." Wrote the woman, "I suspect she faked it." The young woman said she and her boyfriend had been "skipping meals, losing sleep and falling behind at work to help her." "If it were your mom, would you help her?" To further complicate things, the mother's boyfriend, an apparent alcoholic, began sending the young couple "aggressive texts" — then "later apologized," according to the thread. The mother then "called again begging for help. But this time, she wanted me … I needed that weekend to study for final exams. And going to that house alone seemed sketchy." The young woman said she's now planning a "Europe trip to see my mom, whom I haven't seen in over a year." While the boyfriend said he supports her trip of several weeks, he also told her she was being "a little selfish," the woman wrote. The boyfriend apparently asked her, "If I were dying, would you quit your job to be with me?" and "If it were your mom, would you help her?" The woman said she "felt pressured to say yes. But truth is, my family wouldn't lie to me or use me like this." The woman concluded that she "loves" her boyfriend and wants "to be there for him. But I don't trust his mom, and this is starting to affect our relationship." She then wondered if she was wrong for "going home to Europe." Some 5,000 people have reacted to the personal situation to date — with the vast majority siding with the stressed young woman. "Why is his family more important than yours?" Wrote a top commenter, "I know you love your boyfriend, but you need to ask yourself if you're willing to give up your own life for him and his mom, because it's never going to stop. It could stop if he chooses to set boundaries, but it doesn't sound like he'll do that." Wrote another person, "Break up. Move out. Go on vacation. Stop dealing with crazy mom and [boyfriend]." Said yet another individual, "Why is his family more important than yours? I would tell him that he should move her to assisted living or an apartment and hire help. Let him know that while you love him, you are not lighting your future on fire to help someone who won't help themselves." And yet another person wrote, "Stay in Europe would be my advice." The person added, "Sounds exhausting."
Gizmodo
4 hours ago
- Gizmodo
Scientists Launch Wild New Project to Build a Human Genome From Scratch
A team of UK-based researchers is going where no scientist has dared to go—writing artificial human DNA from scratch. They're hoping the project will answer fundamental questions about the human genome and transform our understanding of health and disease. But the research topic is, for obvious reasons, controversial. Scientists have largely steered clear of trying to create full synthetic human genomes, wary of propelling us into a dystopian, Gattaca-esque future full of designer babies. Now, the Wellcome Trust, the world's largest medical charity, has coughed up about $11.7 million (£10 million) to kickstart the Synthetic Human Genome Project (SynHG). The charity says that the benefits outweigh the risks. The technology, it says, could be used to create new medical treatments, like designer cell-based therapies and virus-resistant tissue transplantation. Jason Chin, a professor at the University of Oxford, will lead the project in collaboration with several other UK-based universities and research centers. Over the next half-decade, Chin and his colleagues hope to create the foundational tools, technologies, and methods to allow researchers to create genomes from scratch. 'The ability to synthesize large genomes, including genomes for human cells, may transform our understanding of genome biology and profoundly alter the horizons of biotechnology and medicine,' Chin said in a statement. The Wellcome Trust also contributed significant funds to the Human Genome Project, which was completed 25 years ago. Actually building a human genome from nothing is even more ambitious and is expected to take years, maybe decades. Chin's team recently synthesized the complete genome of E. coli bacteria, but that's small potatoes next to a human genome, which is roughly 700 times larger. 'If you think about the human genome, it's more than just a set of genes on a string,' Julian Sale, a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, told The Guardian. 'There's an awful lot of the genome, sometimes called the dark matter of the genome, that we don't know what it does. The idea is that if you can build genomes successfully, you can fully understand them.' The scientists' first step will be to create a full, synthetic human chromosome, which researchers plan to tackle in the next five to ten years. Unlike genome editing, which works on one or a handful of genes at once, genome synthesis allows researchers to alter DNA at a larger scale. It could help determine how large swaths of our DNA—including those we don't know much about—determine our health and characteristics. 'The ability to synthesize large genomes, including genomes for human cells, may transform our understanding of genome biology and profoundly alter the horizons of biotechnology and medicine,' Chin said in a statement. Some researchers worry that the ability to write human genetic code could give researchers a scary amount of control over human living systems. It could one day be used to create synthetic humans, biological weapons, or even creatures with human DNA, Bill Earnshaw, a genetic scientist at Edinburgh University, told BBC News. But he adds that the technology necessary to do those things is still pretty far off. The project is attempting to tackle the thorny ethical issues of creating a human genome head-on. The Wellcome Trust is funding a parallel research effort into the social and ethical issues of creating human genomes in a lab, led by Joy Zhang at the University of Kent. 'This technology is going to be developed one day, so by doing it now we are at least trying to do it in as responsible a way as possible and to confront the ethical and moral questions in as upfront [a] way as possible,' Tom Collins, senior research manager at Wellcome, told BBC News.
