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(( Anatomy of Einstein's brain ))
Albert Einstein, the unassuming genius of relativity and E=mc2, was no swollen head. But his brain — at least one portion of it — really was bigger than what’s in the rest of us.
In the June 19 issue of the medical journal The Lancet, researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, report that the portion of the brain associated with mathematics was 15 percent wider than average in Einstein.
Furthermore, they found that the groove that normally runs from the front of the brain to the back did not extend all the way in Einstein’s case.
The researchers hypothesize that the partially missing groove might have allowed more neurons in this area to establish connections between each other and work together more easily.
“That kind of shape was not observed in any one of our brains and is not depicted in any atlas of the human brain,” says Sandra Witelson, the McMaster neuroscientist who led the study.
“But it shouldn’t be seen as anatomy is destiny,” she adds. “We also know that environment has a very important role to play in learning and brain development. But what this is telling us is that environment isn’t the only factor.”
Other scientists aren’t sure how much size matters in this case, if at all. “I think one should be very cautious in interpreting this finding,” says Dr. Francine Benes, director of the Harvard Brain Bank at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. “To relate this finding to Einstein’s genius, one would have to have a comparison group of geniuses.”
Still, Benes adds, “It’s quite interesting. I think this observation may prompt investigators to investigate this portion of the brain more closely.”
Einstein’s brain was removed during an autopsy after he died in April 1955 at age 76. Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, cut the brain into pieces and preserved it in formaldehyde for scientific study.
The overall size of Einstein’s brain is unremarkable. It actually weighed a third of a pound less than the three-pound average of adult males. In 1985, scientists at University of California, Berkeley reported that portions of Einstein’s brain had higher-than-normal numbers of glial cells, which feed neurons. The Berkeley researchers suggested that the extra glial cells were needed to nourish Einstein’s high-performance neurons, but that finding remained controversial.
In the latest study, the McMaster researchers compared autopsy measurements and photographs of Einstein’s brain with the preserved brains of 35 men and 56 women known to be of normal intelligence when they died.
With the men’s brains, they conducted two separate comparisons — first between Einstein’s brain and those of all the men, and next between his brain and those of the eight men who were similar in age to Einstein when they died.
Einstein’s brain fell in the range of normal for all measurements, except for the portion known as the inferior parietal lobes, located in the middle of the brain. Other experiments have shown the parietal lobes are involved in mathematics, as well as music and processing of visual images
“The region of the brain that seems to be different in Einstein is the part that would be used in his unusual abilities,” comments John Kaas, a psychology professor at Vanderbilt University. “That makes a stronger argument. If they showed a difference in some other part of brain, I wouldn’t be as impressed.”
Witelson says the missing groove, known as the sulcus, was likely always absent in that part of Einstein’s brain, rather than shrinking away as a result of his intelligence, because it appears very early in life.
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