gray matter

gray matter

Intelligence. In medicine, gray matter is tissue in the brain and spinal cord. Come on in—we could use your gray matter as we try to solve this problem.
See also: gray, matter
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

gray matter

Fig. intelligence; brains; power of thought. Use your gray matter and think what will happen if the committee resigns. Surely they'll come up with an acceptable solution if they use some gray matter.
See also: gray, matter
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

gray matter

Brains, intellect, as in If you'd only use your gray matter, you'd see the answer in a minute. This expression refers to actual brain tissue that is gray in color. Agatha Christie's fictional detective, Hercule Poirot, constantly alludes to using the little gray cells for solving a crime. [Late 1800s]
See also: gray, matter
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

ˈgrey matter

(informal) intelligence or mental powers: Mark hasn’t got much grey matter, but he tries hard.
See also: grey, matter
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • grey matter
  • record
  • any way
  • the matter at hand
  • be a matter of (doing something)
  • be a matter of something/doing something
  • it is a matter of (doing something)
  • no matter what
  • for that matter
  • no matter
References in periodicals archive
Initial and progressive gray matter abnormalities in insular gyrus and temporal pole in first-episode schizophrenia contrasted with first-episode affective psychosis.
High spatial resolution MRS and segmented MRI to study NAA in cortical gray matter and white matter of the human brain [abstract].
Next, images were segmented into gray matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid using an extension of the standard unified segmentation model in SPM12.
Localized differences in gray matter among the three groups were displayed as statistical parametric maps in Figures 1 and 2.
Compared with that in non-SLE group, the gray matter volume in SLE group was less in the bilateral temporal lobe, right occipital lobe, and right limbic lobe [Table 2] and [Figure 1].
Table 4 presents correlations of OFC gray matter volumes with WAIS-III, TMT, and WCS scores in participants who had undergone MRI studies.
(1) It proposes to segment the brain and extract the gray matter shape feature, which is more robust to interclass variation.
Despite initial focus on white matter demyelination, there has been increasing focus on the gray matter pathology occurring in MS.
They also appeared to make reciprocal synaptic connectivity with the host rat spinal cord neurons in the gray matter for several segments below the injury.
The IQ changes were accompanied by changes in the brains' gray matter, which includes nerve cells.
They discovered a strong connection between the number of Facebook friends and the amount of "gray matter" in the amygdala, the right superior temporal sulcus, the left middle temporal gyrus and the right entorhinal cortex.
Theo Gray's Mad Science comes from the popular author of Popular Science Magazine's "Gray Matter" column and here offers over fifty extreme experiments for DIY scientists.
Gray Matter plays out like an old-school point-and-click adventure.
More recent brain imaging studies note a reduction in gray matter volume.
Parent's Choice Gold Award winner Roger Day presents Why Does Gray Matter?, a music CD for young people ages 5-11 with a strong positive message: that using their heads to think and reason is very important!