Have you done well academically in your life?
You have your mother to thank for that.
Well, it depends on who you ask. A study posted on a website called Psychology Spot claims that smart people should be thanking their mothers.
The study’s findings start with a cry against unnamed gender stereotypes and a call for easy pickings at the sperm bank.
“Thus, gender stereotypes that have survived for centuries are perhaps about to disappear. Single women who want an intelligent child don’t need to look for a Nobel Prize at the nearest sperm bank and it is likely that men will begin to see the intelligence of women as an important part of their attraction,” the study states.
Basically, the study claims that intelligence is carried on the X chromosome and since women have two X chromosomes they are more likely to transmit intelligence to their children than men.
The study also discusses the deactivation of genes.
The scientists say that advanced cognitive functions can sometimes be activated or deactivated by a mother or father.
These are “conditioned genes.”
Intelligence is a conditioned gene that is believed to be activated by the mother, according to Independent.
Furthermore, laboratory studies found that genetically modified mice with extra maternal genes developed bigger heads and brains and smaller bodies.
Those given more paternal genes had smaller brains and bigger bodies.
Researches also studied cells that had only paternal genes and only maternal genes in six parts of mouse brains.
These areas controlled different cognitive functions. The paternal genes were found to accumulate in the limbic system that involves things like sex, food, and aggression.
There were no paternal cells found in the cerebral cortex where advanced cognitive functions like reasoning, thought, language and planning occur.
There were also other tests and theories that the study explored to support their finding.
Though the study did find that the IQ of the mother was the best predictor of intelligence, it is believed that genes only make up about 40 to 60 percent of intelligence and the rest is dependent on the environment.
But not everyone agrees with the study’s findings.
Take Forbes Contributor Emily Willingham for example.
She claims that the research is false.
“Mothers do tend to have two X chromosomes, but they aren’t identical chromosomes, and of course, they got one of them from their fathers. Mothers generally pass only one X to their children (after the two X chromosomes engage a little genetic swapping themselves), and those children in turn receive the second sex chromosome (X or Y) from their fathers. Whatever is on the X can pass from mother to child or father to (usually) daughter, but the two X chromosomes the mother has aren’t the same and don’t at all automatically double the odds of inheriting a specific variant,” she writes on Forbes.
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