Is it true that children's intelligence is inherited from the mother? & bull; hello healthy

Children's intelligence is inherited from their parents, but is it true that it is mainly passed down from the mother? How about dad? In China, many pondered the answer to that question after an article appeared on Sina Weibo. The article stated that a mother's genetics has three times as much influence in determining the intelligence of a child as that of a father.

The article said, “To know whether a child is going to be smart or not, all it takes is to look at the mother. For men who consider themselves unintelligent, it is important for them to find a smart wife. " But is this true? Let's see the answer below!

The link between the X chromosome and intelligence

The explanation given in the above article is that the genes that determine intelligence are located on the X chromosome (the chromosome of the female genetic carrier). However, he does not cite any scientific study to provide any source for any claim.

According to Satoshi Kanazawa in his article, general intelligence is known to be highly inherited, and the genes affecting general intelligence are estimated on the X chromosome. That means that boys inherit their general intelligence from the mother only, while girls inherit their general intelligence from mother and father. they. So, women should be able to influence the general intelligence of future generations who are higher than men.

According to an article in PubMed Central (PMC) in 1991, that if there are genes that directly determine the nature of children's intelligence, then one would expect that gene mutations can produce phenotypes that show effects only on intelligence, and possibly with secondary effects on behavior and personality. If so, there should be no somatic changes, no recognizable metabolic abnormalities, no other neurological signs, and no development of intelligence through age.

Si Dayong, an evolution lecturer at Jilin University, rejected the statements directly made in the Weibo article. "The offspring of a certain sex has nothing to do with the X and Y chromosomes, but a kind of epigenetic descent (traits that are not caused by a change in the DNA sequence, but are caused by a change in gene expression)," he said. "I haven't found a specific trait that can be passed down more from a mother or father."

Research on inherited intelligence

A study contained in academic journals Behavior Science 1982 looked at the correlation between parent and child, to notice that the IQ correlation between mother and child intelligence was slightly higher at 0.464 compared to father and son at 0.423.

"I don't think that this slight difference can be considered statistically significant," said Si. "Moreover, genetic inheritance is something random and complex, beyond human imagination."

While it has long been believed that heredity plays a role in children's intelligence, new studies show that it is less likely to play a role than previously thought.

A 2013 study by researchers from the University of Queensland analyzed the DNA and IQ test results of more than 18,000 children from Australia, the Netherlands, the UK and America. The result was that they found that heredity accounted for 20-40 percent of the children's variation in IQ, which was lower than previously thought.

Later researchers concluded that no single gene variant could strongly predict a child's intelligence, and that genetically inherited intelligence was the cumulative effect of many different genes.

Zhao Bowen, a researcher at the Shenzhen Huada Gene Research Institute, outlined the findings in a 2014 article on knowgene.com.

"Currently, there are no DNA sites that directly determine that human intelligence has been discovered," he said. "The influence of parental genetics on children's intelligence can be more or less. And children's intelligence tends to have a normal distribution curve, with the average intelligence of both parents as the median."

Xu Gelin, a neurologist at the Nanjing General Hospital of Nanjing Military Command, emphasized in a Jinling Evening News report published in November 2014, that genetic heredity is complex and random, and that both mother and father have varying degrees of genetic influence on the child. they.

"For example, if the mother has a high IQ, and the father has a low IQ, their child will most likely be in the middle of it," Xu said. This is a contradiction in terms of what is said on Weibo, that to find out a child's intelligence, one thing that is needed is to look at the mother. "Of course, it is also well recognized that a child whose parents have both high IQ will generally be quite smart."

Another factor that affects children's intelligence

Dr. Rachel Brouwer, from the Department of Psychiatry at Utrecht University Medical Center in the Netherlands, says it is true that you can predict a child's IQ based more on the IQ of the parents than on changes in their brain, at the group level.

"So, in general, very smart parents will produce very smart children. However, this is not absolute, and it could be that both parents who have low intelligence turn out to produce children who have a high IQ, and vice versa. " Dr. Brouwer also emphasizes that the environment has an influence on intelligence, although this influence will be lessened as children get older.

Senior lecturer at Melbourne University's Graduate School of Education Catherine Scott places a stronger emphasis on the role of environment and history. "Children don't just share genes," he said. "They also share their family and environment. It also has a lot to do with what they eat, and what their mothers eat."

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