Hollywood's opinion on how to boost IQ

The idea that intelligence could be increased has attracted film producers for decades. In recent years this topic has become rather trendy. 

I can recall four films that could be narrowly classified into the genre of increasing intelligence. The first one is Charly, a 1968 Ralph Nelson production. Charly is an intellectually disabled young adult who can hardly spell his own name. Together with Algernon, a laboratory mouse, he undergoes a surgical procedure that triples his IQ. However, the beneficial effects are not long lasting. Algernon dies, and Charly returns to his pre-surgery state, happily playing with children at a playground, alluding to the fact that high IQ does not necessarily make us happy.

Almost 25 years later The Lawnmower Man (1992), staring Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence Angelo and Jeff Fahey as Jobe, a simple-minded gardener, was released. Jobe’s IQ is increased by a combination of video game training and a nootropic drug. To escape destruction by his teacher Dr. Angelo, Jobe physically disintegrates. He becomes pure energy in the worldwide network and in the last scene confirms his existence by phone – making them ring all around the globe.

More recent movies include Limitless (2011) with Robert de Niro as the bad guy Van Loon, and Luc Besson’s Lucy (2014). In both plots drugs are used as IQ boosters.

Limitless is about Eddie, a writer who takes an experimental drug that boosts his brain power -increasing his memory capacity, attention, and processing speed, all being key components of intelligence. The film ends with Eddie running for the US senate, impressing Robert de Niro with his ability to forecast events, as well as his girlfriend Lindy with his Chinese language skills.

The premise of the box office hit Lucy is professor Norman’s (Morgan Freeman) theory that the average person only uses 10% of their brain capacity. The myth that we use just 10% of our brainpower is extremely widespread, even among well-educated people (Lilienfeld et al., 2010). The idea is of course totally ludicrous. To give just one counter-argument: if it were true, then we could comfortably live without 90% of our brain. We know that even the slightest damage to the brain (e.g., due to stroke or TBI) results in enduring disabilities that can diminish the quality of life. If that is the case, why is the 10% myth so popular and where did it come from? Ward (2015) suggests that it may originate from the idea that only around 10 percent of the cells in the brain are neurons, while the rest are glia cells. However, this fact was recently proven inaccurate. Using the isotropic fractionator counting method the neuron to glia ratio comes close to 1:1 (Azevedo et al., 2009; von Bartheld et al., 2016). Alternatively, it may stem from William James’ popular science statement that an average person does not achieve more than about 10% of intellectual potential. Another possibility is that early brain research dubbed the association cortex as the “silent cortex” (because it had no motor or sensory function), which probably fostered the false impression that it is not used. There is also the claim that Albert Einstein referred to the myth. However as stressed by Lilienfeld et al. (2010), they could not retrieve any such statement by Einstein.

Does neuroscience suffer when blockbuster movies spread unscientific claims? I recently read on the internet: Where can I buy the drug CPH4 (Lucy’s drug)?

Is there a drug that could enhance our intelligence? In our next blog we will try to answer this question – the influence of drugs on IQ.

References:

Azevedo, F. A. C., Carvalho, L. R. B., Grinberg, L. T., Farfel, J. M., Ferretti, R. E. L., Leite, R. E. P., … Herculano-Houzel, S. (2009). Equal numbers of neuronal and nonneuronal cells make the human brain an isometrically scaled-up primate brain. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 513(5), 532–541. https://doi.org/10.1002/cne.21974

Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S., Ruscio, J., & Beyerstein, B. (Eds.). (2010). 50 great myths of popular psychology: shattering widespread misconceptions about human behavior. Chichester, West Sussex : Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

von Bartheld, C. S., Bahney, J., & Herculano-Houzel, S. (2016). The search for true numbers of neurons and glial cells in the human brain: A review of 150 years of cell counting: Quantifying neurons and glia in human brain. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 524(18), 3865–3895. https://doi.org/10.1002/cne.24040

Ward, J. (2015). The student’s guide to cognitive neuroscience (Third edition). London ; New York: Psychology Press, Taylor & Francis Group.