Slow and steady may not be the smartest route after all, since a new study claims that the more adventurous risk takers are smarter than their cautious counterparts, according to Science Daily.
At the University of Turku in Finland, researchers used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI, and Diffusion Tensor Imaging, or DTI, to study the brains of 34 teenage males aged 18 or 19.
For the study, they were sectioned into two separate groups based on psychological testing - one for high risk takers and one for low risk takers.
The findings were shocking, as the scientists expected their evidence to echo research done in the past that points to the more cautious as the more intelligent. Instead, they found that those in the risk taker group had more white matter in the brain when observed from the imaging machines.
"White matter constitutes the neural network, about 160,000 kilometers in length, that transmits signals in the form of nerve impulses and is crucial to the regulation of internal communication between the different areas of the brain," according to Alpha Galileo.
"We expected to find that young men who spend time considering what they are going to do in a given risk situation would have more highly developed neural networks in their brains than those who make quick decisions and take chances," said researcher Dagfinn Moe. "This has been well documented in a series of studies, but our project revealed the complete opposite."
"This finding is interesting and will be important to the way we understand the brain's development and our learning potential linked to risk-willingness," he added.
