Think Fast

After hearing this I'm thinking maybe I should try to learn another language for about the sixth time.

From NPR...

The smarter the person, the faster information zips around the brain, a UCLA study finds. And this ability to think quickly apparently is inherited.

"When you say someone is quick-thinking, it's genuinely true," Thompson says. "The impulses are going faster and they are just more efficient at processing information, and then making a decision based on it."

Haier says the good news is that we're not necessarily stuck with the brain, or the brain speed, we inherit. He says thinking is like running or weightlifting. It helps to have certain genes. But anyone can get stronger or faster by working out.

The brain is like a muscle, Haier says: "The more you work it the more efficient it gets."

So people who practice the violin, or do math problems, or learn a foreign language are constantly strengthening certain pathways in their brains.

And Thompson notes that our brains, unlike our bodies, peak relatively late in life. "The wires between the brain cells, the connections, are the things that you can modify throughout life," he says. "They change and they improve through your 40s and 50s and 60s."