News and Opinion

How important are our genes in determining intelligence?

A review on "the new genetics of intelligence"

Published in Neuroscience

Go to the profile of Alan Woodruff
Alan Woodruff
Community Editor, Queensland Brain Institute
How important are our genes in determining intelligence?
Like
Go to the profile of Warren Raye

Share this post

Choose a social network to share with, or copy the URL to share elsewhere

Share with...

...or copy the link

This is a representation of how your post may appear on social media. The actual post will vary between social networks

A recently published review in Nature Reviews Genetics looks into the vexed issue of genetics and intelligence. As covered recently in our own pages by Annie Brookman-Byrne, there is little question that our DNA contributes to our cognitive abilities, and therefore to our school performance. Yet this hasn’t prevented consternation over the wisdom or desirability of knowing how our genetic makeup shapes learning, or more specifically, intelligence. As highlighted in the Nature Reviews Genetics article, improved methods and larger population cohorts are bringing us closer each year to a full accounting of the heritability of intelligence. Importantly, knowing more about the genetic determinants of intelligence (and other cognitive skills) can help us gauge the true contribution of environmental influences on learning—the ones we can directly control. 

Go to the profile of Alan Woodruff
Alan Woodruff
Community Editor, Queensland Brain Institute

Please sign in or register for FREE

If you are a registered user on Research Communities by Springer Nature, please sign in

Sign In Register

Cookies

We use cookies to ensure the functionality of our website, to personalize content and advertising, to provide social media features, and to analyze our traffic. If you allow us to do so, we also inform our social media, advertising and analysis partners about your use of our website. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to deny or allow. Please note that based on your settings not all functionalities of the site are available.

Further information can be found in our privacy policy.

Cookie Control

Customise your preferences for any tracking technology

The following allows you to customize your consent preferences for any tracking technology used to help us achieve the features and activities described below. To learn more about how these trackers help us and how they work, refer to the cookie policy. You may review and change your preferences at any time.

See the full cookie policy See the full privacy policy
More information

These trackers are used for activities that are strictly necessary to operate or deliver the service you requested from us and, therefore, do not require you to consent.

More information

These trackers help us to deliver personalized marketing content and to operate, serve and track ads.

More information

These trackers help us to deliver personalized marketing content to you based on your behaviour and to operate, serve and track social advertising.

More information

These trackers help us to measure traffic and analyze your behaviour with the goal of improving our service.

More information

These trackers help us to provide a personalized user experience by improving the quality of your preference management options, and by enabling the interaction with external networks and platforms.