New research debunks the belief that you can assess intelligence based on facial features.
Researchers have identified more than 70 genes that affect variation in both brain and facial structure. The genes don’t influence cognitive ability, however.
Although developmental biologists are used to thinking about the developing face as a receptacle for the embryonic brain—morphing and stretching as the growing brain pushes outward—it turns out that the face is an active participant in biological cross-talk during development that affects the three-dimensional features of both structures.
“We were astonished to find 76 genetic regions that affect both face and brain shape in the human population,” says Joanna Wysocka, professor of chemical and systems biology and of developmental biology at Stanford University.