Einstein's brain

[Pradeepkumar]

I have heard that einstein's brain is different from others .Is it true???What make a man to think more???

[DrP]

Each one of our brains is unique in it's own way. All of our individual experiences we encounter throughout our lives add to and develop our individual character and personality. No doubt he was a brilliant man, but he was just that at the end of the day - A man like any other.

[Diocletian]

I find it ridiculous that his brain was preserved just so that we could somehow "extract" his genius. Nurture vs. nature, my friends. His abilities had just as much to do with his upbringing and education (after all, he was instructed at a young age by experts in the physics, which had much to do with his fascination in science) as it does his innate intelligence.

[Sisyphus]

I find it ridiculous that his brain was preserved just so that we could somehow "extract" his genius. Nurture vs. nature, my friends. His abilities had just as much to do with his upbringing and education (after all, he was instructed at a young age by experts in the physics, which had much to do with his fascination in science) as it does his innate intelligence.

 

So it's not worth studying? While it's true that Einstein's brain is no more "unique" than anyone else's, he was able to do amazing things with it, that probably fewer than one per million ever could. To suggest an entirely "nurture" explanation is what seems ridiculous to me. And even if that were the case, who's to say that "nurture" didn't physically alter his brain in a detectable way? In any case, he obviously had a very unusual mind in a number of different ways, so it seems like a no-brainer (ahem) to at least look at his physical brain and see if and in what way that is noticeably unusual, as opportunities for studying brains of comparable intellect will obviously be rare.

[Tsadi]

I actually watched the disection of Einstein's brain.

 

Einstein’s abrupt death was by internal bleeding caused by a rupture of an aortic aneurism; the autopsy was performed by Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey, who decided to remove and even preserve his brain, even though at first glance, the brain looked perfectly normal - then not long ago the pickled brain of Albert Einstein was finally taken out of its container. After 52 years, dissecting the brain, we could see that Einstein had an unusual amount of extra white matter. Further investigation in 1999 at McMaster’s University showed that the parietal operculum region was missing... and to compensate this missing matter his 'inferior parietal lobe' was 15% times wider.

 

The inferior parietal region is in fact responsible for mathematical reasoning, visuospatial cognition and imagery of movement - all pivotal traits in quantum physics. His brain also contained a whopping 73% more 'glial cells' than the average brain

 

Also, Einstein was born with Macrophaly, and it has been proven that the larger the brain, the greater the intelligence is a true saying. Microcephaly has been observed as a genetic disorder which shrinks the brain of the subject. They have an intelligence comparable to that of chimps.

[call_me_nny]

I knew nothing about Einsteins brain before going to this page, but hypothesizing based on Tsadi's facts I have come up with this, which might help

 

White matter's purpose is to carry neurons from areas of gray matter to other areas of gray matter. With the excess of white matter, there was probably also increased neuron usage. This would probably cause him to make connections between certain things more quickly, which would definitely aid Einstein with developing ideas.

 

Einstein's inferior parietal lobe was large, and that dealt with interpreting sensory information from the rest of the body. It has been thought that this also dealt with separating visual inputs from the subject's perception. This is somewhat of a stretch, but one might be able to say that Einstein literally did not see things the way everyone else did.

 

and as for

who's to say that "nurture" didn't physically alter his brain in a detectable way?

there is actually a possibility that 'nurture' did alter his brain, Macrophaly has been known to develop over time due to environmental conditions.

 

Again, no hard scientific evidence that i could pull up right now, just me surmising. Although i suppose i could go a-poking around to find the articles and such that i read that informed these ideas. Also, I am just a high school student so if any of this doesn't make sense, I apologize, my education hasn't really gone in depth with ANYTHING as of yet.

[insane_alien]

neurons are not transported by white matter, neurons don't move, at all.

 

they do send electrochemical signals.

[Mr Skeptic]

I think that Einstein's brain would be zombie delicacy. Mmmm, pickled genius brains...

 

I hope I didn't lower the level of discussion here with my brainless zombie jokes...

 

<---- Picture of Einstein mocking the zombies