Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Even though the brain of men is larger than women, it doesn't make them more smart and intelligent. A recent study found that there is a very weak association between brain size and IQ of men.
One of the researchers Jakob Pietschnig from the Institute of Applied Psychology of University of Vienna in Austria says that brain volume plays only a minor role in explaining IQ test performance in humans.
He further added that brain structure and integrity appear to be more important as a biological foundation of IQ, whilst brain size works as one of many compensatory mechanisms of cognitive functions.
The researchers pointed that there are no difference in global IQ test performance between men and women. But the differences in the size of brain between men and women are well-established and men yield larger brains compared to women.
They noted that the importance of brain structure compared to brain volume becomes already evident when comparing different species. When considering absolute brain size, the sperm whale weighs in with the largest central nervous system.
Similar results emerge when considering other aspects of species anatomy: Homo sapiens never appears at the top at the list, as would be expected.
Rather, differences in brain structure appear to be mainly responsible for between-species differences in cognitive performance, the study said. Another example are individuals with megalencephaly syndrome (enlarged brain volume) who typically show lower IQ test performance than the average population.
‘Therefore, structural aspects appear to be more important for cognitive performance within humans as well,’ Pietschnig noted.
The findings appeared in the journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.
(With IANS inputs)
