Brainwires

David Shattuck/Arthur Toga/Paul Thompson/UCLA

The smarter the person, the faster information zips around the brain, a UCLA study finds. And this ability to think quickly apparently is inherited. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, looked at the brains and intelligence of 92 people. All the participants took standard IQ tests. Then the researchers studied their brains using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI.

DTI is a variant of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that can measure the structural integrity of the brain's white matter, which is made up of cells that carry nerve impulses from one part of the brain to another. The greater the structural integrity, the faster nerve impulses travel.

"These images really give you a picture of the mental speed of the brain," says Paul Thompson, Ph.D., a professor of neurology at UCLA School of Medicine.

This colorful brain image is like a map of mental speed. The bright spaghetti structures represent the pathways connecting different brain cells. Thompson says not only are these brain scans beautiful but "these images really give you a picture of the mental speed of the brain."

NPR: http://tiny.cc/BpOYP