Posted on 10/20/2011 11:41:54 PM PDT by neverdem
A new study confirms what parents have long suspected: Adolescence can do a number on kids' brains. Researchers have found that IQ can rise or fall during the teen years and that the brain's structure reflects this uptick or decline. The result offers the first direct evidence that intelligence can change after early childhood and provides new hope for boosting the brain's abilities.
Although researchers debate what IQ tests actually measure, they agree that scores can predict our ability to learn and perform certain tasks, and to some degree forecast our later academic achievement and job performance. Scores have long been thought to stay relatively stable throughout our lives; the few studies that have shown some variation in IQ could not rule out measurement errors or differences in testing environment as the cause.
So neuroscientist Cathy Price of University College London and colleagues looked beyond the scores. They tested 33 teenagers—19 boys and 14 girls—in 2004, when they were 12 to 16 years old, and again in 2008, when they were 15 to 20 years old. Each time, the teens took IQ tests that measured their verbal and nonverbal abilities. Then, using magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers scanned the teenagers' brains while they performed verbal tasks, such as reading or naming objects, and nonverbal tasks, such as solving visual puzzles with their hands. The idea was to match their test scores with a picture of their brain's structure and activity at each time.
The test results revealed dramatic changes: between their first testing and their second, the teens' verbal and nonverbal IQ scores rose or fell by as many as 20 points (on a scale for which the average is 100). Some teens improved or declined in just their verbal or nonverbal skills or improved in one area and declined in the other.
The brain scans mirrored the score differences. In teens whose verbal IQ scores had increased, for example, the scans showed increased gray matter density in a region of the brain activated by speech. Teens whose nonverbal skills had improved showed changes in a brain region associated with motor movements of the hand.
"These changes are real and they are reflected in the brain," says Price, whose team reports the finding online today in Nature. "People's attitude is to decide early on that this is a clever kid, and this is not a clever kid—but this suggests you can't make that assessment in the teenage years."
The results are "really exciting," says John Gabrieli, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who was not involved in the study. "People have thought IQ is fixed or that it becomes stable very early in life, but here is meaningful evidence that variation happens and continues well into adolescence."
The study offers no clues to why the fluctuations occur. But it does raise the possibility that training or other interventions could boost performance, says Frances Jensen, a neurologist and neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston."This is a really nice mixed message for teens," she says. "It suggests there's still plasticity at this stage ... so you can still work on weaknesses and enhance strengths."
Jensen notes the study has another potentially powerful implication: Although teen angst and eye rolling may fade with time, the brain's ability to boost—or lose—its brainpower may not. "Is the end of the story in the teen years, or is there still this plasticity in the young adult brain and beyond?" she says. "I don't think we know that yet."
I can't find Nature's section for advance online publication since the last time they changed their homepage.
One only has to look at the Wallstreet protestors to know there is some truth to this study.
Shoot,
It’s not fixed in mine either.
I step on it hard in regular fashion every now and again.
My IQ went down when I started drinking and drugging at eleven and raised very high after I quit both in my early twenties. Funny how that works. Also increased sex hormones during the teens and twenties didn’t help much either. But dang I had fun. haha. IQ can be overrated
Maybe there's hope for the Left after all.
*snort*
I could have told 'em that they were full of it years ago. There has been more then one case of a child that was tested as "retarded" who after being placed in a good home where they were giving loving care blossomed and later tested as normal or above normal.
People don't like to hear it because it means that nurture has a lot more to do with their child's learning problem then nature but it is accurate.
Yeah, it would be tough to fix that. Thanks neverdem.
Probably daydreaming about sex during the second test.
When I was 16 years old my old man was so ignorant I could scarcely stand to have him around. When I got to be 21, I was astonished how much the old boy had learned in five years.
(Quotation not represented to be accurate except in meaning.)
A sample of 33, with scores going dramatically up and down on what appears to be a non-standard and not widely used test?!! It would be interesting to see if this gets replicated.
People don't like to hear it because it means that nurture has a lot more to do with their child's learning problem then nature but it is accurate.
Yes, and that's not the half of it:indicates that there have been cases of surgeons removing literally half of a child's brain, and seeing the child recover full function!
- The Mind and the Brain:
- Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force
; Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon BegleyAnd even in adults, they have scanned the brains of adult London cabbies before and after they studied the map of London intensively for a year in order to pass the exam for a cabbie license. The scans show an increase in the size of the part of the brain - the hippocampus - in which that sort of memory get stored.
Jensen notes the study has another potentially powerful implication: Although teen angst and eye rolling may fade with time, the brain's ability to boost—or lose—its brainpower may not. "Is the end of the story in the teen years, or is there still this plasticity in the young adult brain and beyond?" she says. "I don't think we know that yet."They should do their homework . . .In a similar vein, Salman Khan - khanacademy.org - reports that his system for teaching, and monitoring the progress of, school children reveals that some children start out slow and suddenly take off, transcending the abilities of others who at the first appeared to be much smarter . .
I gave up on them a long time ago, having concluded that they are hopelessly mind-numbed Neanderthal robots, incapable of functioning like a homo sapiens or comprehending reality.
Should I try to reach them? You mean they're not completely lost?
Ha, ha, that reminds me of a co-worker I knew who said he quit smoking when he was thirteen. That gave me a good laugh. I had visions of a baby in a stroller chain-smoking Camels.
I have to wonder why there is so much push against the idea that you can “grow” an IQ. Yes, there is probably a limit but you can stretch what you have. Or restrict it.
Can see the scene unfolding. Deep male, cigarette destroyed voice asking for a pack of unfiltered smokes at the 7-11 counter. Employee stands behind counter looking around until he bends over and sees the 2-year-old baby in stroller with arms crossed and a snotty, pouty face because the employee is just not quite quick or brilliant enough to make this purchase conclude any time soon. lol.
IQ Not FOUND In The Teenage Brain.
Fixed it.
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