How smart are you, really? A quick fMRI brain scan will tell you

By Lulu Chang Published October 13, 2015

IQ tests are so last decade. Now, if you really want to know how smart you are (and be warned, some things are better left undiscovered), you should probably get an fMRI scan. A new study published in Nature suggests that not only is your brain activity about as unique as your fingerprint, but also reveals some pretty compelling evidence as to how smart you are. As it turns out, some brains really are just better than others in that they’re wired more efficiently and more effectively.

In conducting their study, researchers examined the fMRI scans of 126 human subjects and attempted to predict their success on motor, memory and intelligence tests. Key to their predictions were the brain’s connectomes, which refers to how different areas of the brain communicate with one another. Over the last five years, the Human Connectome Project has attempted to map out exactly how synapses fire and “talk” to one another, and as it turns out, the more they’re chatting, the “smarter” you are.

Recommended Videos

“The more certain regions are talking to one another, the better you’re able to process information quickly and make inferences,” Emily Finn, a Yale grad student and study co-author told Wired. In particular, the more your frontal and parietal lobes are in contact with one another, the more fluid intelligence you have — that is, your abstract reasoning abilities.

Of course, just because your fMRI scans suggest a lot of inter-brain communication doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be more successful or even more intelligent than your peers. After all, “What happens in an MRI scanner isn’t what happens in daily life,” Judy Illes, a neuroethicist at the University of British Columbia points out to Wired.

Still, the most impressive aspect of this latest study lies in scientists’ newfound ability to carefully analyze the unique communication maps in neural connections. Ultimately, researchers believe, this may allow us to predict human behavior, better customize educational plans, and even create unique healthcare setups for individuals based on their brain scans.

It’s still a ways away, but one day soon, movies like The Minority Report may be more fact than fiction.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…

Computing

Google Gemini’s best AI tricks finally land on Microsoft Copilot

Copilot app for Mac

Microsoft’s Copilot had a rather splashy AI upgrade fest at the company’s recent event. Microsoft made a total of nine product announcements, which include the agentic trick called Actions, Memory, Vision, Pages, Shopping, and Copilot Search.

A healthy few have already appeared on rival AI products such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, alongside much smaller players like Perplexity and browser-maker Opera. However, two products that have found some vocal fan-following with Gemini and ChatGPT have finally landed on the Copilot platform.

Cars

Rivian set to unlock unmapped roads for Gen2 vehicles

rivian unmapped roads gen2 r1t gallery image 0

Rivian fans rejoice! Just a few weeks ago, Rivian rolled out automated, hands-off driving for its second-gen R1 vehicles with a game-changing software update. Yet, the new feature, which is only operational on mapped highways, had left many fans craving for more.
Now the company, which prides itself on listening to - and delivering on - what its customers want, didn’t wait long to signal a ‘map-free’ upgrade will be available later this year.
“One feedback we’ve heard loud and clear is that customers love [Highway Assist] but they want to use it in more places,” James Philbin, Rivian VP of autonomy, said on the podcast RivianTrackr Hangouts. “So that’s something kind of exciting we’re working on, we’re calling it internally ‘Map Free’, that we’re targeting for later this year.”
The lag between the release of Highway Assist (HWA) and Map Free automated driving gives time for the fleet of Rivian vehicles to gather ‘unique events’. These events are used to train Rivian’s offline model in the cloud before data is distilled back to individual vehicles.
As Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe explained in early March, HWA marked the very beginning of an expanding automated-driving feature set, “going from highways to surface roads, to turn-by-turn.”
For now, HWA still requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road. The system will send alerts if you drift too long without paying attention. But stay tuned—eyes-off driving is set for 2026.
It’s also part of what Rivian calls its “Giving you your time back” philosophy, the first of three pillars supporting Rivian’s vision over the next three to five years. Philbin says that philosophy is focused on “meeting drivers where they are”, as opposed to chasing full automation in the way other automakers, such as Tesla’s robotaxi, might be doing.
“We recognize a lot of people buy Rivians to go on these adventures, to have these amazing trips. They want to drive, and we want to let them drive,” Philbin says. “But there’s a lot of other driving that’s very monotonous, very boring, like on the highway. There, giving you your time back is how we can give the best experience.”
This will also eventually lead to the third pillar of Rivian’s vision, which is delivering Level 4, or high-automation vehicles: Those will offer features such as auto park or auto valet, where you can get out of your Rivian at the office, or at the airport, and it goes off and parks itself.
While not promising anything, Philbin says he believes the current Gen 2 hardware and platforms should be able to support these upcoming features.
The second pillar for Rivian is its focus on active safety features, as the EV-maker rewrote its entire autonomous vehicle (AV) system for its Gen2 models. This focus allowed Rivian’s R1T to be the only large truck in North America to get a Top Safety Pick+ from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
“I believe there’s a lot of innovation in the active safety space, in terms of making those features more capable and preventing more accidents,” Philbin says. “Really the goal, the north star goal, would be to have Rivian be one of the safest vehicles on the road, not only for the occupants but also for other road users.”

Cars

Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan hit the brake on shipments to U.S. over tariffs

Range Rover Sport P400e

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced it will pause shipments of its UK-made cars to the United States this month, while it figures out how to respond to President Donald Trump's 25% tariff on imported cars.

"As we work to address the new trading terms with our business partners, we are taking some short-term actions, including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans," JLR said in a statement sent to various media.