‘People May Not Get Smarter Since Grey Matter Has Stopped Evolving’
Scientists have claimed that the human brain may have reached its full capacity and can’t get cleverer.
A team at Cambridge University
The scientists have based their findings after analysing the structure of the brain and worked out how much energy its cells use up.
Professor Simon Laughlin was quoted by the British media as saying, “We have demonstrated that brains must consume energy to function and that these requirements are sufficiently demanding to limit our performance and determine design. Far-reaching powers of deduction demand a lot of energy because for the brain to search out new relationships it must constantly correlate information from different sources.
“Such demands mean there is a limit to the information we can process.”
The scientists say that the wiring inside the brain would need vast amounts of extra energy to become more efficient. As it’s impossible for humans to provide this, they can’t become any smarter.
In their research, the team measured the efficiency with which different parts of the brain communicated with each other and found impulses travelled fastest in smarter people and slower in those who were less intelligent.
“High integration of brain networks seems to be associated with high IQ. You pay a price for intelligence. Becoming smarter means improving connections between different brain areas but this runs into tight limits on energy, along with space for the wiring,” Ed Bullmore, team member, said.
Scientists have said that even the cleverest people might not get any brighter since our grey matter has stopped evolving. And it is all down to physics.
One part of the theory is that scientists reckon brain cells cannot get much smaller than they are at present — meaning there will not be any further space for more of them.
It is also thought the number of connections between brain cells cannot rise much more due to the amount of energy they consume.
Research has shown that the better connected the parts of the brain, the higher a person’s IQ. It means if we turned any smarter the impact on our body’s power supply would be immense.
According to Ed Bullmore, professor of psychiatry at Cambridge
Laughlin also feels the brain evolution could go into reverse if human circumstances change - for instance if there were a shortage of food. He said, “The fact that brains both expand and contract during evolution shows that the optimum balance changes with circumstances.
A team at
The scientists have based their findings after analysing the structure of the brain and worked out how much energy its cells use up.
Professor Simon Laughlin was quoted by the British media as saying, “We have demonstrated that brains must consume energy to function and that these requirements are sufficiently demanding to limit our performance and determine design. Far-reaching powers of deduction demand a lot of energy because for the brain to search out new relationships it must constantly correlate information from different sources.
“Such demands mean there is a limit to the information we can process.”
The scientists say that the wiring inside the brain would need vast amounts of extra energy to become more efficient. As it’s impossible for humans to provide this, they can’t become any smarter.
In their research, the team measured the efficiency with which different parts of the brain communicated with each other and found impulses travelled fastest in smarter people and slower in those who were less intelligent.
“High integration of brain networks seems to be associated with high IQ. You pay a price for intelligence. Becoming smarter means improving connections between different brain areas but this runs into tight limits on energy, along with space for the wiring,” Ed Bullmore, team member, said.
Scientists have said that even the cleverest people might not get any brighter since our grey matter has stopped evolving. And it is all down to physics.
One part of the theory is that scientists reckon brain cells cannot get much smaller than they are at present — meaning there will not be any further space for more of them.
It is also thought the number of connections between brain cells cannot rise much more due to the amount of energy they consume.
Research has shown that the better connected the parts of the brain, the higher a person’s IQ. It means if we turned any smarter the impact on our body’s power supply would be immense.
According to Ed Bullmore, professor of psychiatry at
Laughlin also feels the brain evolution could go into reverse if human circumstances change - for instance if there were a shortage of food. He said, “The fact that brains both expand and contract during evolution shows that the optimum balance changes with circumstances.
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