Differences between brain at work and at rest may influence intelligence

Your brain activity differs depending on whether you’re working on a task, or at rest — and just how much that activity differs may be linked to how smart you are, a new study finds.

Researchers found that people who displayed similar brain activity while at rest compared to while they were completing a mental task performed those tasks more efficiently than people whose brain activity differed more between their resting state and when they were working on a task.

…

The researchers suggested two possible explanations for why being efficient at changing brain activity states and performing well on tasks might be linked. One explanation is that a person’s brain is partially preconfigured to switch between resting and completing tasks, so less reconfiguration is needed. The other explanation is that people who perform well on the tasks require only small changes in their brain activity, the researchers wrote.

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It’s unclear whether a person’s resting brain activity patterns and working brain activity patterns can be changed, the researchers wrote.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Differences in Brain Activity May Determine How Smart You Are

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