The construct of general intelligence (g) is one of psychology’s most replicated and predictively useful constructs. Although research indicates that g is a highly heritable trait, deeply rooted in brain physiology, to date neither a strong biological correlate nor a comprehensive explanatory model involving neuronal mechanisms have been established. In this article I aim to do so by hypothesising that the von Economo neuron (VEN), a unique nerve cell thus far implicated in social cognition and interoception, may in fact represent a central biological constituent of g. After presenting supportive evidence from neuroscience, psychiatry/neurology, clinical gerontology, and comparative psychology, an integrated reductionist framework is outlined, which reaches from the level of cognitive theory to the level of single neurons. Based thereon, it is concluded that the VENs might contribute to individual differences in g by rapidly inducing the coherence of neuronal oscillations within a functionally invariant parieto-frontal network underlying higher-order cognition, thereby facilitating mental efficiency.

普通智力（g）的构造是心理学中最可重复且可预测性最高的构造之一。尽管研究表明g是一种高度可遗传的性状，深深扎根于大脑生理学，但迄今为止，尚未建立强的生物学相关性或涉及神经元机制的全面的解释模型。在本文中，我的目的是通过假设von Economo神经元（VEN）（一种迄今与社会认知和接受感知有关的独特神经细胞）实际上可能代表了g的主要生物学成分。。在提供了来自神经科学，精神病学/神经病学，临床老年病学和比较心理学的支持性证据后，概述了一个综合的还原论框架，其范围从认知理论的水平到单个神经元的水平。基于此，可以得出结论，VENs可以通过在高阶认知基础的功能不变的顶额额网络内快速诱导神经元振荡的相干性，从而促进g的个体差异，从而促进心理效率。