As you read this, the neurons in your brain are creating a spectacular supernova of electrical impulses, connecting to each other in scandalously convoluted and ever-changing patterns. How this neural chaos translates into thoughts, insights, feelings, and awareness is something that even the greatest minds have failed to fathom, yet researchers from the University of Warwick may have now finally discovered the fundamental property underlying intelligence.

Reporting their findings in the journal Brain, the authors reveal how their research not only sheds light on the cerebral processes behind humans’ exceptional learning abilities, but could also help to explain the many mysteries behind mental illness.

In their write-up, the team note that until now, the majority of studies into the roots of consciousness have tended to look at either the overall activity of the brain when performing certain tasks or specific individual connections between two chosen brain regions. However, no one has yet investigated what the researchers call the “temporal variability of the functional architecture” of the brain.

In more basic terms, this refers to the amount by which the patterns of communication between a particular brain region and all other regions changes over time, thereby giving an indication of how static or flexible the connectivity of that region is. This is thought to be important since a number of studies have previously shown that brains that are more flexible tend to belong to more intelligent people, with a greater IQ and capacity to learn novel tasks.

To conduct their investigation, the study authors collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) data from 1,180 people across the world. After analyzing this information, they noted that brain areas that are heavily involved in learning – such as the hippocampus, olfactory gyrus, and caudate – all show high temporal variability, meaning they regularly and rapidly change their patterns of connectivity.

In contrast, brain regions that control more automatic functions that aren’t related to consciousness, such as the sensory-motor cortices, display low temporal variability, maintaining a much more static pattern of connectivity.

Image: The degree by which a brain region's connectivity varies over time is a key indicator of its capacity to learn. XStudio3D/Shutterstock