Tuesday, November 24, 2020

One's Math Ability Is Influenced By Genetics?

     In the article posted by Inverse, a German study was shared. In which it was found that a fifth of one's math ability is linked to the volume of gray matter on the right parietal cortex of the brain; which involves quantitative association. This study was conducted on 3-6 year-olds that were followed up on when they turned 7-9 years-old. The children were assessed mathematically and it was found that that the difference in math abilities was linked to the volume of gray matter within the brain. Therefore, the greater the volume of gray matter, the greater the mathematical abilities. The factor that linked math ability to genetics was that the amount of gray matter in the brain is influenced by the ROBO1 gene. Therefore, it was concluded that one's math ability is influenced by genes. I found this article to be very well written; the title was intriguing and I was very impressed by the data found. I do agree with this article, as there is no denying well-supported data, and as mentioned in the article nurture also plays a significant role in the quality of one's mathematical abilities. In my opinion, I believe that one's mathematical abilities could be influenced by genetics; however, the methods in which one fosters math concepts plays a much larger role

1 comment:

  1. As someone who is definitely not a math person I was very excited to read this article and to see how much of someone's math skills are influenced by ones genes. The article states that genes only play about 20٪ role in your math skills so its interesting to know that there's still a lot of factors that also contribute. It would be cool to know how much we actually can control our skills and if we can still have good math skills even if its not in our genes.

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