Where is intelligence hidden in the brain? – 04/24/2023 – Luciano Melo

A serious accident punched a hole in AP’s forehead, aged 23, a poorly finished window overlooking his frontal lobes. It took many days of rehabilitation and several surgeries before he was able to return home. Months passed and he got better. Empowered, he wished to return to work. But he was unable to retain a goal in his mind without getting lost in the random distraction caused by his thoughts and without getting confused among other non-priority obligations. Unable to meet demands, he was fired.

Before the trauma, AP kept his room impeccably tidy. Afterwards, piles of assorted junk grew beside her bed. The disorganization also affected her social life; he couldn’t plan even a single activity for the coming weekend. For some reason, he needed a technical report on his deficiencies. Those who cared for her decided to write such a document enriched with cognitive tests. AP scored 120, a score above the population average on the most widely used scale to measure IQ (intelligence quotient). He also did well on tests that assess cognitive abilities in the frontal domains.

AP’s story is not entirely new. The influential Portuguese neuroscientist António Damásio had already told us the saga of a man who, despite having permanent damage to his frontal lobes, had an IQ of 130, just like a gifted person. Although possibly considered extremely intelligent, he was unable to organize his life. He took hours on simple tasks. To decide if he would dine out, he asked for information about the table layout, atmosphere and menu of different establishments. Sometimes he would go to a restaurant to check the capacity and, even then, he couldn’t make any decision.

Intelligence has a direct relationship with the frontal lobes, and there is good precedent for thinking so. We humans have higher foreheads than other primates and Neanderthals. This increase arose from the frontal impression of the brain and parallels our complexity.

We also know that damage to these areas can seriously alter behavior and intellectual abilities, as these wolves are involved in regulating social behavior and preparing strategies. And, of course, they support some mental foundations that are difficult to define, such as free will and critical thinking.

Studies point out that the capacity of analogy seems to have as its center a subdivision of the left frontal lobe. In turn, fluid intelligence, which is the ability to reason freely without prior knowledge, seems to orbit part of the right frontal lobe.

So how can one explain the disagreements contained in AP and in Damasio’s patient? How did these two people score high on an IQ test but at the same time not perform well?

First, damage to the frontal lobe is often diffuse and it is not a simple task to define which subdivisions it affects. Second, intelligence assessments are imperfect. The way neuropsychological tests are organized does not always reach routine dysfunctions, as each test brings an explicit problem to be solved, within a short task and strongly directed by the examiner. None of these demand the creation of strategies of longer duration, in an unstable environment, constituted by information that does not appear simultaneously. When answering such questions, it is not necessary to assess the impact of a decision, especially when the outcome does not go as planned.

That is, the tests fail to adequately reproduce some everyday issues. Life is more disorganized and unpredictable than a succession of questions and it provokes doubts whose answers are neither so clear nor immutable.

Day-to-day planning depends on opportunities and difficulties that occur in real time. They are carried out by the impulse of intention, which adapt a schematic script to an opportunity.

Intelligence is difficult to measure and has practical purposes that are not always simulated.

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