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Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability

wired.com

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Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability

#11

Post by jsprogrammer »

klunger wrote: post #10
gwern wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). There is no reason whatsoever to do this. Aside from the issue that 'multiple intelligences' has not held up and has been abandoned, if you want to measure their intelligence, it's unlikely that brain scans will anytime in the foreseeable future outperform simp…

OK, maybe that was a bad example, but it also wasn't the point. If you do a connectome mapping for one particular purpose, the ability to analyze that mapping data for many other (perhaps more insidious) purpose seems like a real problem. A better example than the kid example I pulled straight from the article: If someone gets their connectome mapped to help select treatment for some kind of mental disorder, it may a…

Is there a hypothesis that connects particular connectome structures to violent behavior?

Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability

#12

Post by metasean »

gwern wrote: post #8
klunger wrote: post #6

I wonder how future research will be affected by this. Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). Presumably, within the data of that same scan, there will also be information about whether that kid is violent etc. This will simply not be part of the analysis for learning environment matching. But, the in…

> Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). There is no reason whatsoever to do this. Aside from the issue that 'multiple intelligences' has not held up and has been abandoned, if you want to measure their intelligence, it's unlikely that brain scans will anytime in the foreseeable future outperform simp…

While I largely agree with you, I have to take issue with a couple of you points.

> outperform simply giving a child a 10-minute pencil-and-paper IQ test (and highly unlikely that scans will ever be cheaper or easier than a regular IQ test).

For children the test takes, "48–65 minutes to administer" and requires more than pencil-and-paper [1].

> There is no reason whatsoever to do this.

More importantly, I think doing a regular comparison of the standard IQ test results with this new scanning method could be a good way to account for test bias [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_fo...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Test_bia...

Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability

#14

Post by anortons »

"Some brains are better than others at certain things, simply because of the way they’re wired. And now, scientists are closer to being able to determine precisely which brains those are, and how they got that way ... Intelligence research is relatively young."

No, it's not. The Eugenic movement started the quest for the "better" brain nearly a century and a half ago, and we all know how that turned out...

Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability

#15

Post by anortons »

"Some brains are better than others at certain things, simply because of the way they’re wired. And now, scientists are closer to being able to determine precisely which brains those are, and how they got that way ... Intelligence research is relatively young."

No, it's not. The Eugenic movement started the quest for the "better" brain nearly a century and a half ago, and we all know how that turned out...

Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability

#17

Post by minority-one »

anortons wrote: post #14

"Some brains are better than others at certain things, simply because of the way they’re wired. And now, scientists are closer to being able to determine precisely which brains those are, and how they got that way ... Intelligence research is relatively young." No, it's not. The Eugenic movement started the quest for the "better" brain nearly a century and a half ago, and we all know how that turned out...

The movement for the better brain started much before half a century ago.

If you study Jewish history you will find out they have been doing this all along. For instance, as a very literate culture, they would encourage the less capable of learning to leave the faith, much like a Rumspringa without end. This had the effect of culling the less intelligent, which was an effect they understood and seeked purposefully. On the other side of the coin, as opposed to Christianity which discourages its representatives (priests) from reproducing, Rabbis were encouraged to have prolific offspring on account of their being the most educated people, and the community engineering so that there will be more intelligent Jews (sons of cultured Rabbis) than unintelligent ones (those who are encouraged to give up on faith studies).

But yes, evil Germans and their eugenics, carry on.

Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability

#18

Post by Nav_Panel »

I'd like to direct curious readers to my favorite story by Isaac Asimov, called "Profession": http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html

It deals with pretty much exactly this topic -- in the story, peoples' professions are determined by brain scans (as in the study), and the requisite professional knowledge is then loaded via a similar device (which seems much further off). The story explores some of the ethical/societal implications of being "exceptional" in terms of brain structure. It's an incredible piece of fiction, and it has stuck with me over years and years even when the appeal of stories like "The Last Question" have somewhat worn off for me.

Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability

#19

Post by Menge »

NickM wrote: post #5
mrdrozdov wrote: post #4

I wouldn't consider a measurement of a brain's mapping any different than the measurement of a person's height. Someone taller probably has a better chance of being a good basketball player, but there are plenty of basketball players who are excellent and not of exceptional height. The article makes it seem as though there are absolute measurements being made of certain elements in the brain, but it's almost more tha…

I agree with you, though I'm not sure if height is even the best metaphor: our brains are remarkably changeable based on how we use them, so a better comparison might be measuring an athlete's muscle mass in different parts of the body.

> our brains are remarkably changeable based on how we use them, so a better comparison might be measuring an athlete's muscle mass in different parts of the body.

Yes, I immediately thought of the motor skills experiments[1] that raised brain density in the relevant regions.

I think the first half of the article was too sensational and brave new world oriented given that the explanation for the differences in regional brain densities and contentedness would mostly be from the home environment of a young child.

It was a bit like predicting the availability of hearing tests will lead us to build classrooms of super hearers instead of intervene to address hearing issues before children fall behind.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18648501

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