Is your brain wired for common sense?

I know plenty of high IQ people who have lousy judgment. I bet you do too. They solve differential equations in their sleep, but still click send when the Prince of Nigeria requests their bank account info. That suggests, as you may have guessed, the brain’s intelligence circuit is distinct from the common sense circuit.

Neuroscientists in Cambridge, United Kingdom, recruited 45 volunteers with brain damage due to surgery, trauma or stroke (and another 45 people with no brain damage) to play a gambling game. The game went something like this: “There are ten boxes on that table, some are red, some are blue. There’s a token hidden under one of the boxes. You get a bank of a hundred dollars. You can bet some or all of it on red or blue. The probability of winning or losing is solely dependent upon the ratio of red to blue boxes.”

First thing that the scientists determined was that the afflicted patients retained a relatively normal level of intelligence. Indeed, the patients who’d suffered brain damage demonstrated an understanding of the game and probability of winning that was similar to the control population (a proxy for verbal and mathematical IQ).

An interesting betting pattern emerged in volunteers with insular cortex (a part of the brain active during psychological conflicts) damage. The insular patients failed to adjust their bets in relation to the odds of winning. In other words, they would bet twenty-five dollars that the token was under a red box regardless of the ratio of red to blue boxes.

A different betting pattern emerged in volunteers with prefrontal lobe (executive function area of the brain, responsible for attention, concentration, self-control and decision making) damage. The prefrontal patients displayed increased betting regardless of the odds of winning. In other words, they would bet the whole pile that the token was under a red box regardless of the ratio of red to blue boxes.

The experiments demonstrated that, although able to behave intelligently under most circumstances, people with brain pathology centered in the prefrontal lobe or insular cortex lost a substantial amount of common sense.

These findings go a long way to explaining why teenagers have judgment issues: The prefrontal lobe isn’t fully myelinated until the age of twenty-five. What’s more, every waking moment of a teenagers’ day is overstuffed with psychological conflict, causing the insular cortex to go haywire.

Currently, there’s no good way to augment your brain anatomy in a manner that improves your judgment. But there are plenty of neurological, nutritional and behavioral paths to free your brain’s potential. To learn more check out https://amzn.to/3utS9CG