Correlation among body height, intelligence, and brain gray matter volume in healthy children
Highlights
► Body height was significantly positively correlated with brain gray matter volume. ► The correlation was found in the prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal region. ► Several of these regions were significantly correlated with intelligence quotient.
Introduction
The famous aphorism, mens sana in corpore sano (i.e., “a sound mind in a sound body”) is as relevant today as in the time of Juvenal. Insofar as intelligence is an indication of a healthy brain and height is an indicator of a healthy body, the high correlation between IQ and height seen in children (Tuvemo et al., 1999, Wheeler et al., 2004) and young adults (Humphreys et al., 1985, Teasdale et al., 1989) suggests parallel development of the two measures. Moreover, growth velocity was associated with IQ in a longitudinal study (Lundgren et al., 2001). Thus, it is suggested that taller stature is associated with higher IQ.
To explain the correlation between height and IQ, we hypothesized that brain structure may mediate the relationship in that several recent studies have shown a significant positive correlation between brain regional gray matter volume and IQ (Frangou et al., 2004, Haier et al., 2004, Shaw et al., 2006, Wilke et al., 2003). Specifically, several gray matter regions are significantly correlated with IQ, including the prefrontal cortex (Shaw et al., 2006), orbitofrontal cortex (Frangou et al., 2004), cingulate gyrus (Frangou et al., 2004, Wilke et al., 2003), and cerebellum (Frangou et al., 2004). Additionally, it is plausible that regional gray matter volume may mediate the correlation between height and IQ because the main environmental determinant of height is nutrition (Silventoinen, 2003) and because differences in breakfast dietary habits affect not only IQ, but also gray matter volume in healthy children (Taki et al., 2010). Although revealing the correlation among height, IQ, and gray matter volume is important from the perspective of developing a healthy lifestyle, including a sound diet, in children, the correlation among body height, intelligence, and gray matter volume has not yet been clarified.
Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze whether a significant correlation between the gray and white matter volumes of the brain and body height existed using brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 160 healthy children aged 5–18 years of age. In addition, we also analyze the correlation between regional gray and white matter volume and full-scale IQ in the same subjects, and compare the two results to check whether there are overlapping regions that show significant correlation with height and also significant correlation with full-scale IQ. We collected brain magnetic resonance (MR) images, full-scale IQ scores, verbal IQ (vIQ) scores, and performance IQ (pIQ) scores. Correlations between regional gray and white matter volume and body height, and between regional gray and white matter volume and IQ were analyzed by applying voxel-based morphometry (VBM), which is an established automated neuroimaging technique that enables global analysis of brain structures without a priori identification of a region of interest so that it is not biased toward any specific brain region, thereby permitting the identification of potential structural differences or abnormalities in the brain (Ashburner and Friston, 2000). Therefore, we used VBM to conduct an unbiased search for relationships between brain structure and height or IQ.
Section snippets
Subjects
All subjects were healthy Japanese children included in the Japanese database of normal pediatric brain MRIs. They were recruited in the following manner. First, we distributed 29,740 advertisements summarizing this study to kindergartens, elementary, junior high, and high schools in Miyagi Prefecture in Japan. Then, the 1423 parents of subjects with an interest in this study contacted us by mail. Next, we mailed both child and parent versions of detailed information concerning this study to
Results
Height showed a significant positive correlation with full-scale IQ (partial correlation coefficient: C = 0.257; P = 0.001), vIQ (C = 0.261; P < 0.001), and pIQ (C = 0.187; P = 0.019) after adjusting for age, sex, and socioeconomic status. On the other hand, we found no significant correlation between weight and full-scale IQ (C = 0.140; P = 0.081) or between BMI and full-scale IQ (C = − 0.001; P = 0.988) after adjusting for age, sex, and socioeconomic status. Thus, we focused on height in our further analyses.
Discussion
We demonstrated that the regional gray matter volume of several regions such as the bilateral basal aspect of the temporal lobe, the prefrontal cortices, and the cerebellum were significantly positively correlated with body height after adjusting for age, sex, and socioeconomic status. Although no study has directly shown a significant correlation between height and regional gray matter volume, recent studies have shown a significant positive correlation between height and brain volume or total
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B).
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