Smart Teenage Brains May Get Some Extra Learning Time : Shots – Health News : NPR.
We have long accepted that there are specific critical periods in animals as they grow up – we know a fair bit about how dogs grow up. Doesn’t surprise me a bit that there are similar periods in a human’s life as well. It’s just that our complexity (including the complexity of our surroundings) makes it less noticeable.
I’ve thought for a long time that in a sense the brains of really intelligent people run “hotter” than others. It would make sense that the plasticity of their brains would be greater. I predict that we will eventually discover that the really intelligent have brains that never really “settle”.
While I don’t pretend to have any understanding of the mechanisms, I also think that this plays an important role in mental illness, especially schizophrenia – the brain just runs too hot.
Having a Formula 1 brain in a Studebaker body is bound to have some consequences.