Brain patterns linked to IQ may actually reflect socioeconomic privilege, study finds

A large analysis using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study shows a child’s neighborhood and socioeconomic background strongly shape brain development and function, more so than many traditional cognitive or health factors. Patterns previously associated with IQ largely mirrored socioeconomic status and stress-related factors; after removing SES effects, IQ–brain associations largely disappeared. Multivariate models trained only on higher-SES data failed to predict IQ in lower-SES groups, indicating shortcut learning rather than a true biological signature of intelligence. SES explained roughly 16% of brain variation, underscoring environmental influences and suggesting future work on sleep and stress reduction in under-resourced communities.