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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Flow Cytometric Analysis of Biomarkers for Detecting Human Sperm Functional Defects
Published on: April 21, 2022
Why is intelligence correlated with semen quality?: Biochemical pathways common to sperm and neuron function and
Arand Pierce1, Geoffrey Miller, Rosalind Arden
1Department of Pathology; School of Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA. apierce@salud.unm.edu
Abstract:
We recently found positive correlations between human general intelligence and three key indices of semen quality, and hypothesized that these correlations arise through a phenotype-wide 'general fitness factor' reflecting overall mutation load. In this addendum we consider some of the biochemical pathways that may act as targets for pleiotropic mutations that disrupt both neuron function and sperm function in parallel. We focus especially on the inter-related roles of polyunsaturated fatty acids, exocytosis and receptor signaling.
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