New findings on Einstein's mind

The unfortunate story of Einstein's brain, which was separated from his body after his death, and most of the body, except for the brain and eyes, was burned

Einstein was born in the city of Ulm in Germany at 11:30 on March 14, 1879 and died after one in the morning on April 18, 1955 at the age of 76. Within a few hours of his death at Princeton Hospital in New Jersey, his brain was removed; His brain was measured at a weight of 1230 grams and was immersed and sprayed with 10% formalin. It is claimed that permission will be obtained from Einstein's son Hans Albert and the guardian of the Einstein estate Otto Natan to keep and study Einstein's mind. However, Einstein's brain was actually stolen by the surgical pathologist Thomas S. Harby without permission in the post-mortem and the permission for the research was apparently not given.

After the brain was removed, Einstein's body (without the brain and eyes) was cremated on the day of his death in accordance with Einstein's will. The eyes were removed by an ophthalmologist and are in private hands. The autopsy report after death - report number 33 - for 1955 at Princeton Hospital disappeared and was not found for over 18 years. And that's why they say sometimes it's better not to be a world icon and a world genius and die as a human being...

Dr. Harby used a 35 millimeter camera to take dozens of black and white pictures of the dissected brain before he cut it into 240 blocks (pieces) wrapped in celloidin. A "road map" was prepared that demonstrates the locations of each block in the brain. A series of histological slides was prepared from the 240 blocks.

The fate of Einstein's brain and these 240 blocks was rather unfortunate for the next five decades. They traveled in a van in the USA together with Dr. Harby: from Princeton to the West-East of the USA; Along the way Harby distributed parts of the blocks to various researchers and at the end of 1996 the brain and Dr. Harby returned back to the University Medical Center in Princeton. At least 18 researchers on the way received tissues from Einstein's brain or photographs of the brain from Dr. Harby. As a result, they published six articles that analyzed the tissues of the blocks or the photographs that Harby made of Einstein's brain.

For example, Diamond and his group found in 1985 a large ratio between glial cells and neurons in the lower left parietal vessel; while Anderson and Herby in 1996 found a greater density of neurons in the right frontal lobe; Kieger and his group found in 1997 an increase in the ratio between glial cells and neurons in the bilateral temporal neocortex. In 1988 DNA sequencing was also carried out from Einstein's brain which was wrapped in celloidin. At the end of the day, a collection of 180 blocks remained from the original 240 pieces that arrived at the end of the journey to the University Medical Center in Princeton.

There are several pieces of embroidery scattered in Ontario, California, Alabama, Argentina, Japan, Hawaii and Philadelphia. Apart from these tissues it is not known where the rest of the tissues of Einstein's brain went and their location will probably remain unknown. There is a huge collection of 567 slides of tissue from Einstein's brain, which is now in the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

In addition, the huge collection of photographs of Einstein's brain taken by Dr. Harby - which were intact in 1955, some of the histological slides and the road map that characterizes the locations of the blocks that produced the slides, were all donated by Harby's family to the National Museum of Health and Medicine only in 2010.

Apart from these, the location of other photographs that are probably still somewhere and are not documented is unknown. These materials were received by the museum in June 2010 and entered the museum's permanent collection. A side note: if Einstein knew about everything that was done with his brain, he would surely be turning over in his grave at the motives that led Dr. Harby to dissect his brain and distribute the pieces of his brain to researchers - motives that are mainly greed and global publicity and not pure research motives. Fortunately for Einstein, he was cremated and he cannot turn over in his grave from shock...

Since the materials are in the National Museum of Health and Medicine, researchers have been eyeing them, as for the first time a careful study of the morphology of Einstein's cerebral cortex can be carried out due to the sharp photographs in the museum. And here very quickly emerged the first researchers to do just that: Dean Falk of the School of Advanced Studies in Santa Fe and professor of anthropology at Florida State University, Fred Lepore, an ophthalmologist who specializes in neurology at the Robert Wood School of Medicine in New Jersey, and Adrian Nau, director of the National Museum of Health and medicine - the institute now owns photographs of Dr. Harby.

Falk and his group analyzed the morphology of the frontal and parietal lobes to investigate known human cognitive abilities associated with certain parts of these lobes. The researchers will now correct misinformation published over the years about Einstein's brain because previous researchers before them did not have access to the new materials at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Although the researchers' conclusions are valid for frontal and parietal morphology, they describe interesting features that apply to Einstein's entire brain and that can be correlated with other blocks of the road map of Einstein's brain. Most of the researchers' article deals with a neuromedical analysis of Einstein's brain; It is very technical from a neurological point of view and it does not help the cognitive understanding of the thinking of Einstein the scientist, the creator and the man. It is of interest to theoretical medicine, it provides a very narrow cadet for neuroscientists how the mind of a genius works, and it does not seem to help solve practical medical problems (diseases, pathological problems, etc.).

Below are some points that can shed light on Einstein himself. The researchers found in Einstein a large bump-shaped crease in the right lobe, the area that controls movement, which means extensive motor representation for the left hand. This is a characteristic that is found in musicians, especially in violinists who play right-handed for a long time since childhood. People who play stringed instruments since childhood tend to develop this bump-shaped crease. Einstein played the violin as a hobby from childhood and throughout his life.

The researchers found another finding in both hemispheres. They found that the size of Einstein's brain was normal. As you know, a genius is ultimately a human being and humans are the most intelligent creatures on our planet. Therefore, their cerebral cognitive abilities should be assessed in this context.

The cognitive abilities of a "genius" like Einstein are evaluated by three parameters: a large brain, a large brain volume and connections between the components of the brain (neurological reorganization) that ordinary humans like us do not have. And so we think that Einstein's brain should be analyzed in terms of size and neurological reorganization. As you remember, Einstein was 76 years old when he died in 1955; And in his brain the signs of age are evident such as a slow rate of shrinkage of the cortex, which probably also contributed to the expected reduction of the brain. The weight of his brain at autopsy was 1230 grams. There are no exact details about how this weighing was carried out: whether it was carried out together with or without the meninges and all. In any case, the brain weight of a 76-year-old is on average 9% smaller than that of an adult. The researchers performed a corrective calculation in light of this information and the known information regarding the weighing of Einstein's brain carried out in 1955 and concluded that the size of Einstein's brain was not unusual. Although Einstein's brain is normal in size the researchers found unusual neurological reorganization features in Einstein's brain.

For example, the researchers found a finding regarding the prefrontal cortex (the prefrontal cortex), which is responsible for higher cognitive operations. In addition to speech, the prefrontal cortex is essential for the imagination of events and the simulation of their outcomes. The researchers found in Einstein an expanded and developed prefrontal cortex, which is just right for use in thought experiments, such as Einstein's famous thought experiment in which he imagined himself chasing a light beam and the thought experiments from general relativity: the famous elevator experiments.
In addition, the new photographs from the museum reveal enlargement of the lateral part of the left primary somatosensory cortex and the left primary motor cortex. The researchers write that this can be interpreted from the words of Einstein himself who used to write that thinking is an association of images and feelings and for him the elements of thinking are not only visual, but also muscular.

The researchers analyze in detail the morphology of Einstein's brain and we will not bore you with any more terms from the field of neuromedicine, which do not lead us to understand how Einstein arrived at his great teachings.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/insidenova/2012/11/poring-over-einsteins-brain.html
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/11/14/brain.aws295.full.pdf+html.