How is intelligence related to the dynamic interaction of billions of neurons in the human brain? A prominent hypothesis posits that general intelligence is related to the efficiency of the brain’s global functional network. But some publications question this link. Now, biological psychologists from Germany and the USA examined associations between g and the brain’s functional network properties in four independent data sets, by using a multi-center approach that comprises more than 2000 healthy participants. The results were sobering: No robust relation between general intelligence and the efficiency of the brain’s intrinsic functional architecture could be discovered. What is the solution? It is not clear yet, but it could be that functional connectivity is indeed relevant for intelligent thinking but only when it is investigated in a dynamic manner during conducting tasks.

Metzen, D., Stammen, C., Fraenz, C., Schlüter, C., Johnson, W., Güntürkün, O., DeYoung, C.G., Genç, E., Investigating robust associations between functional connectivity based on graph theory and general intelligence, Sci. Rep., 2024, 14: 1368.