The "good" fat makes it smart
A new study reveals that the organization of certain brain networks involved in intelligence is directly related to our consumption of unsaturated fatty acids, such as omega-3. Benedict Salthun-Lassalle
The idea makes its way: eating well and in a balanced way would improve brain health and our cognitive performance. This is particularly the case with the Mediterranean diet, rich in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids including omega-3. But no study has yet really proved that there is a link between the components of this diet and the effectiveness of brain networks involved in intelligence. That's what Aron Barbey's team from Urbana-Champaign University in Illinois has just done.
General intelligence is a combination of skills including reasoning, problem-solving skills, day-to-day decision-making, social faculties and job performance. It is based on the synchronization and the efficiency of the communication between different brain networks, for example that of the default mode, active when one is at rest, the back network of the attention, playing a key role in the demanding tasks and the daily problems, or the frontoparietal network, involved among other things in decision-making.
But the proper functioning of the brain depends largely on its fats, which represent more than 55% of its dry weight! Because fatty acids and cholesterol contribute, among other things, to the structure of neurons and other brain cells, as well as to the synthesis of neurotransmitters, enzymes, hormones, which provide brain activity. Most monounsaturated fatty acids (eg olive oil) and saturated fatty acids (animal fats) exist in sufficient quantities in the diet. On the other hand, among polyunsaturates, omega-3 are rarer: they are found in olive and rapeseed oils, some fish, avocado, nuts ... Foods of the Mediterranean diet that we do not consume enough.
Barbey and his colleagues conducted a blood test of nutritional biomarkers of 99 healthy adults, average age 69 years, to determine the amounts of unsaturated and saturated fatty acids circulating in their body. These rates reflect not only the fats consumed, but also those available to the brain. Then the researchers measured the general intelligence of each participant - thanks to a classic Wechsler test. In parallel, they also recorded in magnetic resonance imaging the connectivity and functional organization of 7 major brain networks, including those mentioned above.
As a result, the internal connectivity and organization of the backbone network of attention, and to a lesser extent those of the frontoparietal network, are associated with higher overall intelligence. And the more the participants have an "efficient" organization of these networks, and consequently a better intelligence, the more they have unsaturated fatty acids in the blood. In contrast, no link was determined with other brain networks, or even with other nutritional markers.
Feel free to eat fat, it's never too late to boost your brain. It is likely that the more you eat "good" fatty acids, the more the brain has at its disposal to produce the essential elements to its functioning - neurotransmitters, enzymes, hormones ... So that your neural networks are more effective, with certainly a reverberate on your attention abilities and your intelligence. This is new evidence that nutrition affects brain efficiency, and that research in nutritional cognitive neuroscience has a bright future ahead of it.
http://www.cerveauetpsycho.fr/ewb_pages ... -38785.php