The Genius Within

INTRODUCTION

‘rewiring’, Mason L. et al. (2017), ‘Brain connectivity changes occurring following cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis predict long-term recovery’, Translational Psychiatry 7, 17 January, e1001.

‘pregnant woman’, Sreeraj V. et al. (2016), ‘Monotherapy with tDCS for treatment of depressive episode during pregnancy: a case report’, Brain Stimulation 9 (3), pp. 457–458.

‘catatonic schizophrenia’, Shiozawa P. et al. (2013), ‘Transcranial direct current stimulation for catatonic schizophrenia: A case study’, Schizophrenia Research 146, pp. 374–375.

ONE: Our Brain Revolution

‘charcoal’, Anonymous (1890), ‘The First Execution by Electrocution in Electric Chair,’ New York Herald, 7 August.

‘expert panel, Hyman S. et al. (2013), ‘Pharmacological cognitive enhancement in healthy people: potential and concerns,’ Neuropharmacology 64, pp. 8–12.

‘oxygen chambers,’ Yu R. et al. (2015), ‘Cognitive enhancement of healthy young adults with hyperbaric oxygen: a preliminary resting state fMRI study’, Clinical Neurophysiology 126, pp. 2058–2067.

‘briefing note’, POST (2007), ‘Better Brains’, 285 June.

‘old joke’, I think this is from Billy Connolly.

TWO: Mensa Material

‘less intelligent kids,’ Binet, A. (1905), ‘Le problème des enfants anormaux’, Revue des Revues 54, pp. 308–325. Translated in Nicolas S. et al. (2013), ‘Sick? Or slow? On the origins of intelligence as a psychological object’, Intelligence 41, pp. 699–711.

‘the scale’, Sullivan W. (1912), ‘Feeble-mindedness and the measurement of the intelligence by the method of Binet and Simon,’ The Lancet, 23 March, pp. 777–780.

THREE: A Problem of Intelligence

‘workplace,’ for example, Kuncel N. and Hezlett S. (2010), ‘Fact and Fiction in Cognitive Ability Testing for Admissions and Hiring Decisions’, Current Directions in Psychological Science 19 (6), pp. 339–345.

‘there’s more’, Ritchie S. (2015), Intelligence: All That Matters (John Murray Learning), pp. 40–54.

‘Robert Jordan’, AP (1999), ‘Judge Rules that Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores’, New York Times, 9 September.

‘1921’, Anonymous (1921), ‘Intelligence and Its Measurement: A Symposium,’ Journal of Educational Psychology 12 (3), pp. 123–147.

‘follow-up’, Sternberg R. and Detterman D. (Eds.) (1986), What is Intelligence? Contemporary Viewpoints on Its Nature and Definition (Norwood).

‘Switzerland,’ Legg S. and Hutter M. (2007), ‘A Collection of Definitions of Intelligence’, arXiv:0706.3639v1, 25 June.

‘stupid behaviour’, Aczel B. et al. (2015), ‘What is stupid? People’s conception of unintelligent behaviour’, Intelligence 53, pp. 51–58.

‘Asian peasants’, Luria A. (1976), Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations (Harvard University Press).

‘Galton’, see Holt J. (2005), ‘Measure for Measure. The Strange Science of Francis Galton’, New Yorker, 24 January.

‘Spearman’, Spearman C. (1904), ‘General intelligence objectively determined and measured,’ American Journal of Psychology 15, pp. 201–293.

FOUR: Treating and Cheating

‘review of studies’, Kekic M. et al. (2016), ‘A systematic review of the clinical efficacy of transcranial direct current stimulation in psychiatric disorders’, Journal of Psychiatric Research 74, pp. 70–86.

‘special needs school’, Geddes L. (2015), ‘Brain Stimulation in Children Spurs Hope – and Concern’, Nature , 23 September.

‘improve the scores’, Chua E. et al. (2017), ‘Effects of HD-tDCS on memory and metamemory for general knowledge questions that vary by difficulty’, Brain Stimulation 10 (2), pp. 231–241.

FIVE: Pills and Skills

‘Japan was heavily into meth’, Alexander J. (2013), ‘Japan’s hiropon panic: resident non-Japanese and the 1950s meth crisis’, International Journal of Drug Policy 24, pp. 238–243.

‘UK officials’, Boseley S. (2014), ‘£200,000 Smart Drugs Seizure Prompts Alarm Over Rising UK Sales,’ Guardian, 24 October.

‘sharpen reaction times’, see Franke A. and Bagusat C. (2015), ‘Use of caffeine for cognitive enhancement’, Coffee in Health and Disease Prevention (Elsevier), pp. 721–727.

‘neuroscientists think’, for example, Minzenberg M. and Carter C. (2008), ‘Modafinil: A Review of Neurochemical Actions and Effects on Cognition,’ Neuropsychopharmacology 33, pp. 1477–1502.

‘Harvard and Oxford’, Battleday R. and Brem A. (2015), ‘Modafinil for cognitive neuroenhancement in healthy non-sleep-deprived subjects: a systematic review’, European Neuropsychopharmacology 25 (11), pp. 1865–1881.

‘dramatically relapsed’, Tan O. et al. (2008), ‘Exacerbation of obsessions with modafinil in two patients with medication-responsive OCD,’ Primary Care Companion of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 10 (2), pp. 164–165.

‘hypersexuality’, Bulut S. et al. (2015), ‘Hypersexuality after modafinil treatment: A case report’, Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology 3, pp. 39–41.

‘amateur athletes’, Dietz P. et al. (2013), ‘Associations between physical and cognitive doping – a cross-sectional study in 2,997 triathletes’, PLOS One 11 (8), pp. 1–10.

‘team managers’, Rodenberg R. and Holden T. (2016), ‘Cognition enhancing drugs (‘nootropics’): time to include coaches and team executives in doping tests?’, British Journal of Sports Medicine, January 25.

SIX: The Mutual Autopsy Society

‘Whitman’, Burrell B. (2003), ‘The Strange Fate of Whitman’s Brain’, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 20 (3), pp. 107–133.

‘Mutual Autopsy Society’, Anonymous (1889), ‘A “Mutual Autopsy Society’”, The Lancet, 19 October, p. 809.

‘skull collections’, Juzda E. (2009), ‘Skulls, science and the spoils of war: craniological studies at the United States Army Medical Museum, 1868–1900’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40, pp. 156–167.

‘league tables’, Spitzka E. (1902), ‘Contributions to the encephalic anatomy of the races. First paper – three Eskimo brains from Smiths sound’, American Journal of Anatomy 2 (1), pp. 25–71.

‘Russian poet’, Vein A. and Matt-Schieman M. (2008), ‘Famous Russian brains: historical attempts to understand intelligence,’ Brain 131, pp. 583–590.

‘Czolgosz’, MacDonald C. and Spitzka E. (1902), ‘The trial, execution, necropsy and mental status of Leon F. Czolgosz’, The Lancet, 8 February, pp. 352–356.

‘disclaim it’, Spitzka E. (1901), ‘Report of autopsy on assassin disclaimed’, JAMA 19, p. 1262.

‘father died’, Unknown (1914), ‘Dr Spitzka’s Brain Weighs 1,400 Grams’, New York Times , 15 January.

‘Robert the Bruce’, Deary I. et al. (2007), ‘Skull size and intelligence, and King Robert Bruce’s IQ’, Intelligence 35, pp. 519–525.

‘Albert Einstein’s Brain’, for example, Hines T. (2014), ‘Neuromythology of Einstein’s brain’, Brain and Cognition 88, pp. 21–25.

‘P-FIT,’ Jung R. and Haler R. (2007), ‘The Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT) of intelligence: converging neuroimaging evidence’, Behavioural and Brain Sciences 30, pp. 135–187.

‘P300’ Amin H. et al. (2015), ‘P300 correlates with learning and memory abilities and fluid intelligence,’ Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 12 (1)87.

‘highly personal’, Finn E. et al. (2015), ‘Functional connectome fingerprinting: identifying individuals using patterns of brain connectivity’, Nature Neuroscience 18 (11), pp. 1664–1673.

‘as bad as it sounds’, Anonymous (1926), ‘Racial Purification,’ Nature, 20 February, pp. 257–259.

SEVEN: Born with Brains

‘no longer teach’, Hunt E. (2014), ‘Teaching intelligence: why, why it is hard and perhaps how to do it,’ Intelligence 42, pp. 156–165.

‘alarm bells’, Parens E. and Appelbaum P. (2015), ‘An introduction to thinking about trustworthy research into the genetics of intelligence’, The Genetics of Intelligence, Hastings Centre report 45 (5), pp. 2–8.

‘segregate’, Radford J. (1991), ‘Sterilization versus segregation: control of the feebleminded, 1900–1938’, Social Science Medicine 33 (4), p. 449–458.

‘nymphomaniacs’, Philo C. (1997), ‘Across the water: reviewing geographic studies of asylums and other mental health facilities’, Health and Place 3 (2), pp. 73–89.

‘Wedgwood’, Woodhouse J. (1982), ‘Eugenics and the feeble-minded: the Parliamentary debates of 1912–14’, Journal of the History of Education Society 11 (2), pp. 127–137.

‘young boy’, Butterworth J. (1911), ‘The diagnosis of feeble-mindedness in school children’, Public Health, August, pp. 425–428.

‘television documentary’, see: www.meanwoodpark.co.uk/insight/out-of-sight-the-documentary

‘studies of the genetics of intelligence’, for example, Shakeshaft N. et al. (2015), ‘Thinking positively: the genetics of high intelligence’, Intelligence 48, pp. 123–132.

‘Rushton’, Terry D. (2012), ‘Leading Race “Scientist” Dies in Canada’, Salon, 6 October.

EIGHT: Current Thinking

‘Orwell’, Carragee E. (2012), ‘Penetrating neck injury: George Orwell is “struck by lightning’”, The Spine Journal 12, pp. 769–770.

‘boosting mental performance’, Beveridge A. and Renvoize E. (1988), ‘Electricity: a history of its use in the treatment of mental illness in Britain during the second half of the nineteenth century’, British Journal of Psychiatry 153, pp. 157–162. And: Elliot P. (2014), ‘Electricity and the brain: an historical evaluation’, The Stimulated Brain (Elsevier), pp. 3–33.

‘mainstream science rediscovered’, Fox D. (2011), ‘Brain Buzz’, Nature 472, pp. 156–158.

‘US military’, Clark V. et al. (2012), ‘TDCS guided using fMRI significantly accelerates learning to identify concealed objects’, Neuroimage 59 (1), pp. 117–128.

‘everyday life’, Clark V. and Parasuraman R. (2014), ‘Neuroenhancement: Enhancing brain and mind in health and in disease’, NeuroImage 85 (3), pp. 889–894.

‘driving’, Santarnecchi E. et al. (2015), ‘Enhancing cognition using transcranial electrical stimulation’, Current Opinion in Behavioural Sciences 4, pp. 171–178.

‘human corpse’, Underwood E. (2016), ‘Cadaver study casts doubts on how zapping brain may boost mood, relieve pain’, Science, 20 April.

NINE: The Man Who Learned to Cry

‘lasers’, Barrett D. and Gonzalez-Lima F. (2013), ‘Transcranial infrared laser stimulation produces beneficial cognitive and emotional effects in humans’, Neuroscience 230, pp. 13–23.

‘John Elder Robison’, Quotes and details from interview with author, and from Robison J. (2016), Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening (Spiegel & Grau).

TEN: The Brain and Other Muscles

‘multiple intelligences’, Gardner H. (1983), Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Basic Books)

‘suggest the opposite’, Visser B. et al. (2006), ‘Beyond g: putting multiple intelligences theory to the test’, Intelligence 34, pp. 487–502; and Visser B. et al. (2006), ‘g and the measurement of multiple intelligences: a response to Gardner’, Intelligence 34, pp. 507–510.

‘emotional intelligence’, Goleman D. (1996), Emotional Intelligence (Bloomsbury).

‘elite football’, Vestberg T. et al. (2012), ‘Executive functions predict the success of top soccer players’, PLOS One 7 (4), e34731.

‘road cyclists’, Okano A. et al. (2015), ‘Brain stimulation modulates the autonomic nervous system, rating of perceived exertion and performance during maximal exercise,’ British Journal of Sports Medicine 49 (18), pp. 1213–1218.

‘less committed’, Vitor-Costa M. et al. (2015), ‘Improving cycling performance: transcranial direct current stimulation increases time to exhaustion in cycling’, PLOS One 10 (12), 16 December.

‘tongue twister’, Fiori V. et al. (2014), ‘“If two witches would watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch?” tDCS over the left frontal region modulates tongue twister repetition in healthy subjects’, Neuroscience 256, pp. 195–200.

‘Stubbeman’, see: neuromodec.com/events/nyc-neuromodulation-confer-ence-2015/abstracts

‘learning to putt’, Zhu F. et al. (2015), ‘Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex area promotes implicit motor learning in a golf putting task’, Brain Stimulation 8 (4), pp. 784–786.

ELEVEN: The Little Girl Who Could Draw

‘Nadia’, Selfe L. (1977), Nadia: A Case of Extraordinary Drawing Ability in an Autistic Child (Academic Press).

‘Treffert’, from Treffert D. (2012), Islands of Genius (Jessica Kingsley Publishers), and from interview with the author.

‘roll call’, Treffert D. and Rebedew D. (2015), ‘The savant syndrome registry: A preliminary report’, WMJ, August, pp. 158–162.

‘Pip Taylor’, from interviews with the author.

‘draw a person’, Iqbal S. et al. (2013), ‘Emotional indicators across Pakistani schizophrenic and normal individuals based on Draw a Person test,’ Pakistan Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 11 (1), pp. 59–65.

‘Bob’, Simis M. et al. (2014), ‘Transcranial direct current stimulation in de novo artistic ability after stroke,’ Neuromodulation 17 (5), pp. 497–501.

‘provocative question’, Nave O. et al. (2014), ‘How much information should we drop to become intelligent?’, Applied Mathematics and Computation 245, pp. 261–264.

‘dementia patients’, Miller B. and Hou C. (2004), ‘Portraits of artists. Emergence of visual creativity in dementia’, JAMA 61 (6), pp. 842–844.

‘retired office worker’, Takahata K. et al. (2014), ‘Emergence of realism: enhanced visual artistry and high accuracy of visual numerosity representation after left prefrontal damage’, Neuropsychologia 57, pp. 38–49.

‘synaesthesia’, Murray A. (2010), ‘Can the existence of highly accessible concrete representations explain savant skills? Some insights from synaesthesia’, Medical Hypotheses 74, pp. 1006–1012.

‘Edinburgh study’, Simner J. et al. (2009), ‘A foundation for savantism? Visuo-spatial synaesthetes present with cognitive benefits’, Cortex 45, pp. 1246–1260.

TWELVE: The Genius Within

‘shit got weird’, http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/acquired-savant-syndrome

‘foreign accent’, for example, Verhoeven J. et al. (2013), ‘Accent attribution in speakers with Foreign Accent Syndrome,’ Journal of Communication Disorders 46, pp. 156–168.

‘near-death’, Blanke O. et al. (2016), ‘Leaving body and life behind: out-ofbody and near-death experience,’ The Neurology of Consciousness, Second edition (Elsevier), pp. 323–347.

‘epilepsy’, Adachi N. et al. (2010), ‘Two forms of déjà vu experiences in patients with epilepsy,’ Epilepsy and Behaviour 18, pp. 218–222.

‘terrifying and distressing’, both taken from http://www.epilepsy.com/connect/forums/new-epilepsycom/memorydream-flashes-after-seizures

‘on demand’, Moriarity J. et al. (2001), ‘Human “memories” can be evoked by stimulation of the lateral temporal cortex after ipsilateral medial temporal lobe resection,’ Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 71, pp. 549–551.

‘odd side effects’, Polak A. et al. (2013), ‘Deep brain stimulation for OCD affects language: a case report,’ Neurosurgery 73 (5), E907–10.

‘most dramatically’, Tomasino B. et al. (2014), ‘Involuntary switching into the native language induced by electrocortical stimulation of the superior temporal gyrus: a multimodal mapping study,’ Neuropsychologia 62, pp. 87–100.

‘smart or dumb’, Hesselmann G. and Moors P. (2015), ‘Definitely maybe: can unconscious processes perform the same functions as conscious processes?’, Frontiers in Psychology 6, pp. 584–560. And: Loftus E. and Klinger M. (1992), ‘Is the unconscious smart or dumb?’, American Psychologist 47 (6), pp. 761–765.

‘that view was challenged’, Sklar A. et al. (2012), ‘Reading and doing arithmetic nonconsciously,’ PNAS 109 (48), pp. 19614–19619.

‘University of Tulsa’, Lewicki, P. et al. (1987), ‘Unconscious acquisition of complex procedural knowledge,’ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 13, pp. 523–530.

‘Benjamin Langdon’, Spitz H. (1995), ‘Calendar counting Idiot Savants and the smart unconscious’, New Ideas in Psychology 13 (2), pp. 167–182.

‘savants make use of’, Snyder A. (2009), ‘Explaining and inducing savant skills: privileged access to lower level, less processed information,’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 364, pp. 1399–1405.

THIRTEEN: The Happiest Man on Death Row

‘William Sidis’, Bates S. (2011), ‘The prodigy and the press: William James Sidis, anti-intellectualism and standards of success,’ Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 88, pp. 374–397.

‘Daily Telegraph’, Kealey H. (2014), ‘Why Do Geniuses Lack Common Sense?’, Telegraph , 14 November.

‘Clever sillies’, Charlton B. (2009), ‘Clever sillies: why high IQ people tend to be deficient in common sense,’ Medical Hypotheses 73, pp. 867–870.

‘Joe Arridy’, most taken from Perske R. (1995), Deadly Innocence (Abingdon Press).

‘legal system to broaden’, Greenspan S. et al. (2015), ‘Intellectual disability is a condition not a number: ethics of IQ cut-offs in psychiatry, human services and law,’ Ethics, Medicine and Public Health 1, pp. 312–324.

‘gullibility’, Greenspan S. et al. (2001), ‘Credulity and gullibility in people with developmental disorders: a framework for future research’, International Review of Research in Mental Retardation 24, pp. 101–134.

‘RQ’, Stanovich K. and West R. (2014), ‘The assessment of rational thinking: IQ ≠ RQ’, Teaching of Psychology 41, pp. 265–271.

FOURTEEN: On the Brain Train

‘Allan Snyder’, Snyder A. et al. (2003), ‘Savant-like skills exposed in normal people by suppressing the left fronto-temporal lobe’, Journal of Integrative Neuroscience 2 (2), pp. 149–158.

‘numerosity’, Snyder A. et al. (2006), ‘Savant-like numerosity skills revealed in normal people by magnetic pulses,’ Perception 35, pp. 837–845.

‘solve a classic puzzle’, Chi R. and Snyder A. (2012), ‘Brain stimulation enables the solution of an inherently difficult problem,’ Neuroscience Letters 515 (2), pp. 121–124.

‘expert chess players’, Franke A. et al. (2017), ‘Methylphenidate, modafinil, and caffeine for cognitive enhancement in chess: A double-blind, randomised controlled trial’, European Neuropsychopharmacology 27 (3), pp. 248–260.

‘Mozart effect’, Pietschnig J. et al. (2010), ‘Mozart effect – Shmozart effect: a meta-analysis’, Intelligence 38, pp. 314–323.

‘wasting their time’, Underwood E. (2014), ‘Neuroscientists speak out against brain game hype’, Science, 22 October.

‘asked viewers’, Owen A. et al. (2010), ‘Putting brain training to the test’, Nature 465, pp. 775–778.

‘silver-haired’, Corbett A. (2015), ‘The effect of an online cognitive training package in healthy older adults: an online randomized controlled trial’, JAMDA 16, pp. 990–997.

‘babies smarter’, Lewin T. (2009), ‘No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund’, New York Times, 23 October.

‘Flynn effect’, Flynn J. (2013), ‘The Flynn effect and Flynn’s paradox’, Intelligence 41, pp. 851–857.

‘tentative signs’, Howard R. (2005), ‘Objective evidence of rising population ability: a detailed examination of longitudinal chess data’, Personality and Individual Differences 38, pp. 347–363.

‘doomed to idiocy’, Woodley M. et al. (2013), ‘Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a metaanalysis of the slowing of simple reaction time’, Intelligence 41 (6), pp. 843–850.

‘mathematics’, Blair C. et al. (2005), ‘Rising mean IQ: cognitive demands of mathematics education for young children, population exposure to formal schooling, and the neurobiology of the prefrontal cortex’, Intelligence 33, pp. 93–106.

‘smartest humans’, Hsu S. (2014), ‘Super-intelligent humans are coming’, Nautilus, 16 October.

‘genetic tweaks’, Hsu S. (2014), ‘On the genetic architecture of intelligence and other cognitive traits’, arXiv:1408.3421v2, 30 August.

‘pigs’, Cyranoski D. (2015), ‘Gene-edited micropigs to be sold as pets at Chinese institute’, Nature , 29 January.

FIFTEEN: Faster, Stronger, Smarter

‘IQ ranges’, Kaufman A. (2009), IQ Testing 101 (Springer), chapter five.