A new BBC game show will feature families competing in a test of intelligence designed by a neuroscientist.

The Family Brain Games will pit eight clans against one another in a series of tasks and follow the contestants behind the scenes.

Dara O Briain will host the new show, which will follow families into a “games lab” to compete and film behind the scenes as spouses, parents and children work out how to tackle each task.

Challenges on the show have been designed with the help of cognitive neuroscientist Dr Adam Hampshire from Imperial College London to test what the BBC have termed “21st century intelligence”.

BBC Two controller Patrick Holland said: “We’re excited about bringing the UK’s most brilliant families together and celebrating their incredible brainpower.

“Mixing documentary sensibility with the entertaining world of family competition, all hosted by the excellent and scarily smart Dara O Briain, it promises to be a thoroughly enjoyable watch.”

After heats, semi-finals and the grand final, only one family can be crowned the winner of the new game show, which will test competitors on their grasp of communication, technology and strategy.

A total of eight 60-minute episodes have been commissioned, with two families going head-to-head in each instalment.

Label1 has developed the new series, which will air on BBC Two.

Simon Dickson, creative director of Label1 said: “We’ve all seen programmes in which super-smart kids battle it out to be crowned top-of-the-class.

“But what these shows have rarely attempted to probe is the often complex dynamics between those children, their siblings and their parents.

“This series gets us into all of that rich content.

“Which family member takes charge?  How do their talents and personalities dovetail?

“Is their intelligence inherited, has it developed over time, or a bit of both?”

He added: “It’s the first quiz show that keeps the cameras running in the gaps between the games.

“We’re as interested in the way the games impact the families’ behaviour as we are in their intellectual prowess during the gameplay itself.”

The Family Brain Games is due to air later this year.