Where your DNA places you among other people, and the studies behind it.
Not tailored to your result, and not medical advice
Engage in Lifelong Learning: Education and sustained intellectual engagement are associated with greater 'cognitive reserve' and, in observational and meta-analytic studies, with lower risk of dementia and slower age-related cognitive decline. Reading, learning new skills, and challenging mental activity are linked to better cognitive maintenance, though much of this evidence is correlational rather than proof of cause. PMC (systematic review & meta-analysis)
Prioritize Physical Exercise: Aerobic exercise is associated with higher brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and, in human and animal studies, with support for neuroplasticity, learning, and memory. Reviews report that regular moderate activity is linked to better executive function across the lifespan, with effects that appear modest and most consistent in older adults. PMC (systematic review)
Protect Sleep Quality: Sleep supports memory consolidation and synaptic homeostasis, and short-term studies show that sleep restriction impairs working memory, attention, and decision-making. Most adults function best on roughly 7-9 hours of regular, good-quality sleep; consistent timing helps maintain day-to-day cognitive performance. PMC (review)
Maintain a Brain-Healthy Diet: The Mediterranean and MIND dietary patterns - rich in leafy greens, berries, whole grains, and healthy fats - have been associated with slower cognitive decline and lower dementia incidence in observational cohorts. These are correlational findings, so diet is best viewed as one part of overall health rather than a guaranteed protection. PMC (Alzheimer's & Dementia)
Cultivate Social Connection: Social interaction is mentally engaging, and loneliness and social isolation are associated with faster cognitive decline and higher dementia risk in longitudinal studies. The 2020 Lancet Commission lists social isolation among modifiable dementia risk factors. Regular, meaningful connection appears to support cognitive maintenance, though causal direction is hard to establish. PMC (Lancet Commission 2020)
How much of this is genetic?
Genetics explains 65% of why people differ in this trait. The rest is environment, daily habits and chance.
Heritability estimate: Plomin & Deary 2015, Mol Psychiatry
Background and further reading
Intelligence, often summarized as general cognitive ability (the 'g' factor), describes the shared variance across tasks that draw on reasoning, abstract thinking, learning from experience, and problem-solving. It is one of the most studied traits in behavioral genetics, and on average IQ-type scores show modest population-level correlations with educational attainment, occupation, and some health and longevity outcomes [1]. These are group-level statistical associations, not predictions about any one person. Intelligence is not a single fixed quantity but an aggregate of diverse functions - verbal comprehension, working memory, processing speed, and spatial reasoning - that are themselves shaped by schooling, motivation, language, and testing conditions.
Genetic Basis: Twin and family studies estimate that heritability of intelligence rises across development - from roughly 20% in infancy to about 50% in childhood and perhaps 60-80% in adulthood, an age-related increase sometimes called the 'Wilson effect' [1]. Heritability is a population statistic about variance, not a measure of how 'genetic' any individual's ability is. The largest GWAS to date identified 205 associated genomic loci for intelligence in 269,867 people [2], and related educational-attainment GWAS implicate over a thousand variants in genes tied to brain development and neuron-to-neuron communication [3]. Even so, current polygenic scores explain only a small fraction of the differences between people - on the order of 7-10% of variance in cognitive performance and 11-16% of educational attainment [3][4] - far less than twin heritability, and these scores are confounded by environment, assortative mating, and population stratification. Within families, where siblings are compared, the predictive effect shrinks to roughly half its between-family size [4].
Environmental Factors: Environment and opportunity shape cognitive development throughout life, and especially in childhood. Family socioeconomic status, parental education, quality of schooling, early-life nutrition, lead and other toxic exposures, and home learning environments all have documented effects on measured cognitive ability. A polygenic score reflects population-level statistical patterns and does not capture these influences, nor does it set a ceiling on what a person can learn or achieve. And because polygenic scores are estimated largely in European-ancestry cohorts and are entangled with environmental and demographic factors, they should never be read as a measure of an individual's worth, potential, or fixed ability, and they cannot be used to compare groups. Differences in average test scores between populations reflect history, opportunity, and measurement - not innate genetic ranking.
The published research behind your score, and the variants it draws on.
6 published scores from 5 studies
The intelligence score combines 6 polygenic scores drawn from 5 published studies.
These traits are influenced by some of the same genes and variants as this one
Content updated August 2026.
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