Brain Area Critical for High-Level Functions Involved in Fluid Intelligence Identified

A specific area of the brain is critical in fluid intelligence, and a new study from London has identified it.

Researchers Study 277 Patients With Brain Problems

Fluid intelligence is the defining feature of human cognition. It predicts one's educational and professional success, health, social mobility, and longevity. It correlates to one's many cognitive abilities, including memory. Fluid intelligence is our ability to solve problems despite our lack of experience.

Science Direct defined fluid intelligence as one's ability to reason or generate, transform and manipulate different types of information in real-time.

A new study conducted by a team led by University College London (UCL) and University College London Hospitals (UCLH) researchers mapped parts of the brain supporting fluid intelligence, which is thought to be a key feature in "active thinking." The researchers studied patients with either missing or damaged parts in their brains to establish which part supports fluid intelligence, SciTech Daily reported.

They investigated 277 patients who suffered from strokes or brain tumors. They used the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM), which is considered the best test of fluid intelligence.

The test includes multiple-choice visual pattern problems of increasing difficulty. Each problem presents an incomplete pattern of geometric figures and requires a selection of missing pieces from a set of multiple possible choices.

The team used the novel "lesion-deficit mapping" to untangle the intricate anatomical patterns of common forms of brain injury like stroke.

The approach considers the relations between brain regions as a mathematical network, making it easy for them to determine which regions are likely to be affected together due to the disease process or in reflection of common cognitive ability.

The researchers disentangle the brain map of cognitive abilities from the patterns of damage, allowing them to map the different areas of the brain and figure out which patients did worse in the fluid intelligence tasks based on their injuries.

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Right Frontal Lesions and Fluid Intelligence Correlation Identified

The team discovered that those with right frontal lesions tend to perform poorly in their fluid intelligence test. The damage is often found in patients with brain tumors, stroke, and other neurological conditions like traumatic brain injury and dementia.

The results showed that the right frontal regions of the brain are "critical to the high-level functions involved in fluid intelligence, such as problem-solving and reasoning," according to lead author, Professor Lisa Cipolotti (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology).

Cipolotti added that the results support the use of APM in clinical settings in assessing fluid intelligence and identifying the dysfunction in the right frontal lobe.

She added that combining novel lesion-deficit mapping with a detailed investigation of APM performance from a wide sample offers crucial information about the neural basis of fluid intelligence.

However, she believed that more studies about lesions are necessary to see the relationship between the brain and cognition, which determines treatment for neurological disorders.

The study titled "Graph lesion-deficit mapping of fluid intelligence" was published in the journal Brain.