Do Gifted Students Have a Better Brain?
April 12 -- Some people probably suspected the math whiz from grade school wasn't in his right mind. Apparently he wasn't — he was in his right and his left mind.
A recent study of adolescents with above-average math abilities found the right and left halves of their brains are apparently better able to interact and share information than the brains of average students.
"Giftedness in math, music or art may be the by-product of a brain that has functionally organized itself in a different way," said Michael O'Boyle, psychologist at the University of Melbourne and one of the study's co-authors.
But parents shouldn't necessarily rush off to try to shape their children into geniuses. Researchers caution over the educational implications of the study, even while acknowledging the environment plays a part, alongside genetics, in brain development.
"There's a lot of interest in how training and learning can affect the brain's functional organization and structure," says Dr. Heidi Roth, assistant professor and cognitive neurologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Department of Neurology. "But it's controversial."
Roth adds, "We have recently become aware of the striking ability of the brain to change its organization depending on experience. For example, people who are highly skilled string instrument players will have greater representation in the brain for the left hand, because special skills in the left hand are needed to play these instruments."
Yet O'Boyle questions whether these findings could apply to education. "I don't think we can create a math genius without the innate talent already there."
Letter Perfect
For the study, published in the April issue of Neuropsychology, researchers at the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences at Fort Benning, Ga., and the University of Melbourne, Australia, compared the responses of math-gifted students to average students on a computerized visual test.
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