By OLINKA KOSTER

Last updated at 18:45 16 April 2008

Drummers are usually credited more for their creative skills than for being brain boxes.

But new research turns that theory on its head - suggesting that those with good rhythm, such as Beatle Ringo Starr, may also be the most intellectual.

The study found that intelligence and good rhythm go hand in hand, after those who performed best at a "drumming" task were also found to have scored the highest in intelligence tests.

Swedish researchers were astonished by the results, as the first task - which involved tapping a drumstick to time - did not require any problem-solving skills.

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Ringo Starr in his heyday: Intelligence and rhythm go together, according to research

But Fredrik Ullen, from leading European university the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, concluded that the study showed a link between intelligence, good timing, and the part of the brain used for problem-solving.

"The rhythmic accuracy in brain activity that is observed when a person maintains a steady beat is also important to the problem-solving capacities measured with the intelligence tests," he explained.

"It is interesting as the task didn't involve any kind of problem-solving."

For the study, 34 right-handed men aged between 19 and 49 who were recruited randomly via a newspaper advertisement.

They were first asked to tap a drum stick at variety of different time intervals as accurately as possible.

Secondly, they were asked to complete a "psychometric test" consisting of 60 questions and problems.

When the results were analysed, it was found that the participants who tapped the drumstick with the most accuracy also achieved the highest scores in the intelligence test.

Prof Ullen, who led the study with Guy Madison at Sweden's Umea University, said the study showed a correlation between high intelligence, an ability to keep good time, and a high volume of "white matter" in the part of the brain linked to planning and managing time.

"We found that people with high general intelligence are also more stable on a very simple timing task," he said.

"We also found that these participants had larger volume of the white matter in the brain, which contains connections between brain regions."

John Jenkins, emeritus professor at the University of London, has previously claimed that listening to music by Mozart, which features sound waves repeated regularly in a particular pattern but not close together, can boost children's powers of intelligence.

Eight years ago, the Education Department went so far as to say listening to the music could help reduce social problems such as teenage pregnancies and drug abuse.

Scans of the brain have also shown that the brain uses a wide distribution of areas to listen to music.

The left side tends to process rhythm and pitch and the right looks after timbre and melody.