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Article
Confirmation of Correlation between Brain Nerve Conduction Velocity and Intelligence Level in Normal Adults
Intelligence
  • T. Edward Reed, University of Toronto
  • Philip A. Vernon, The University of Western Ontario
  • Andrew M. Johnson, The University of Western Ontario
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-1-2004
URL with Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2004.07.004
Disciplines
Abstract

In 1992, Reed and Jensen [Intelligence 16 (1992) 259–272] reported a positive correlation (.26; p=.002; .37 after correcting for restricted intelligence range) between a brain nerve conduction velocity (NCV) and intelligence level in 147 normal male students. In the first follow-up of their study, we report on a study using similar NCV methodologies, but testing both male and female students and using more extensive measures of cognitive abilities. One-hundred eighty-six males and 201 females, aged 18–25 years, were tested in three different NCV conditions and with nine cognitive tests, including Raven Progressive Matrices as used by Reed and Jensen. None of the 27 independent correlations in either the males or in the females are significant at Bonferroni-corrected probability levels, but 25 of 27 correlations in males and 20 of 27 correlations in females have positive signs. The exact binomial probabilities for these results are 5.6×10−6 and .002, respectively. We discuss possible reasons for the differences between the results of Reed and Jensen and our results. We also find that males have four percent faster NCVs than females with each of the three test conditions, probably due to their faster increase of white matter in the brain during adolescence.

Citation Information
T. Edward Reed, Philip A. Vernon and Andrew M. Johnson. "Confirmation of Correlation between Brain Nerve Conduction Velocity and Intelligence Level in Normal Adults" Intelligence Vol. 32 Iss. 6 (2004) p. 563 - 572
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/andrewjohnson/62/