New research being published by Nature has found that intelligence is correlated to how the brain develops in adolescence.

According to Ker Than, brain scans of 307 children

showed that the cortices of all the children’s brains thickened during childhood before thinning again.

The cortices of the smartest 7-year-olds in the group, as an example, started out thinner than average but thickened until age 11 or 12 before thinning. Cortex thickening in children with average IQ, in contrast, peaked at about age 8, and displayed only gradual thinning afterwards.

This could reflect a longer developmental window for high-level brain circuits, the researchers said.

Isn’t it interesting that we think of the proverbial geek as maturing more slowly than his or her less-intellectually-gifted classmates . . . perhaps there’s a bit of biology behind the stereotype . . .