Einstein’s W-i-d-e Brain
S U M M A R Y

Einstein’s brain was normal in size and shape, except for one portion — associated with mathematics — that was 
wider than average.
 
Albert Einstein Neuroscientists Find
Hints of Genius

Albert Einstein, here in 1931, was cremated after his death in 1955. However, his contribution to science lives on, thanks to his brain that was removed beforehand. Click here for video. (AP Photo)
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By Kenneth Chang
ABCNEWS.com
June 17— 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.

Unique Brain

“We don’t know if every brilliant physicist and mathematician will have this same anatomy.”
Sandra Witelson, neuroscientist

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. 

A 1955 photograph of Albert Einstein's brain. (Witelson/Kigar/Harvey/The Lancet)
 

     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.”

Weighing Intelligence
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.

Mostly Normal
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.


The parietal lobes, located behind the brain’s frontal lobes, have been linked with various kinds of higher-level thinking, including processing of visual information, mathematics, language and music. A missing groove might have allowed Einstein’s brain to form more connections between neurons in this region. (ABCNEWS.com)
     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.

Brain Boggler
“We don’t know if every brilliant physicist and mathematician will have this same anatomy,” Witelson said. “It fits and it makes a compelling story, but it requires further proof.”
     Follow-up studies could include scanning the brains of living mathematicians and physicists for similar brain features.
     Witelson’s group is yet to report any findings from its examination of the actual tissue from Einstein’s brain. Witelson obtained a sample from Harvey a couple of years ago.
     Which means there will probably be more chapters in this saga of Einstein’s brain. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


 
Have Brain, Will Travel
Have Brain, Will Travel
For someone dead for more than four decades, Albert Einstein — his brain, anyway — still gets around. 
     In 1997, for instance, he roadtripped from Florida to Berkeley, Calif., seated inside a Tupperware container in the trunk of a rental car. 
     Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who cut the brain out of the dead scientist’s body in 1955, still has most of it. On the 1997 trip, Harvey took the brain to show it to Einstein’s granddaughter, just one incident in Einstein’s afterlife adventures. 
     History is not clear about whether Einstein had requested his brain be preserved for science, or whether on the morning of April 18, 1955, at Princeton Hospital in Princeton, N.J., Harvey just on impulse reached in and pulled it out. 
     Einstein’s heirs, for instance, were surprised when they found out about the brain removal on the front page of The New York Times. But Harvey convinced them that the brain was worthy of scientific study. 
     Decades passed without any news or research about the brain. 
     The recent history of the brain began in 1978 when Steven Levy’s editor told him to go find it. 
     The editor of New Jersey Monthly had read about the removal of Einstein’s brain in a biography. But a search of newspaper clips revealed nothing about the fate or whereabouts of the brain. The Einstein estate didn’t know, either. 
     “I thought it was pretty interesting and pretty crazy,” says Levy, now a senior editor at Newsweek. “I was young and game and just set out doing it.” 
     Some detective work convinced Levy that the brain had never left Harvey’s possession. Levy tracked him down in Wichita, Kan. On the phone, Harvey was evasive and said he couldn’t help. Levy went to Wichita. 
     Levy met Harvey at his office at a medical testing laboratory. “He enjoyed talking about Einstein,” Levy says. “Eventually, after a long period of time, he said he did have it.” 
     Levy pushed: could he, well, see it? After some more hemming, “he said, ‘Well, it’s here, as a matter of fact,’ ” Levy says. Harvey pulled out two mason jars out of a cardboard box, and inside floated the carefully cut-apart pieces of Einstein’s brain. 
     Levy’s reaction: “Stunned at seeing this brain matter that changed the world. It was a moving experience, in a sense.” 
W E B  L I N K

Steven Levy on His Search for Einstein's Brain

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