the morning of April 18, 1955, hours after the death of the largest and most amazing scientist of all time, the pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey hospital in Princeton had the happy idea of "steal" his brain. In the hours following
held a press conference in which he declared that the precious relic was retained by him to steal the secrets of so much genius.
For several years, however, brain and thief disappeared from the scene to appear again in recent times.
Since then several studies have been conducted on the gray matter world's most famous, but nobody has come to meaningful conclusions.
What makes the brain of Albert Einstein? Why become a genius? Physiological factors can be identified?
Einstein's brain is much larger than other brains. However, the parietal lobes, the seat of mathematical ability, musical and language, are larger than normal by about 15 percent. Einstein also had a groove (called the fissure of Silvio) and it was thought that this very absence would allow neurons to communicate with each other more easily.
Previous research on this but had also shown that the density of his brain was out of town, while his cerebral cortex was thinner.
The latest study in order of time was published in the September issue of Brain Research Reviews . Prof. Colombo compared the brain of Albert Einstein with 4 people, dead at the same age of the scientist, without known neurological or psychiatric symptoms and found that:
"'s astrocytes Einstein prove larger and shows greater number of interlaminar terminal masses, reaching the size of 15 microns in diameter. Condition of unknown significance often described in Alzheimer's disease."
It means that Einstein's brain seems more like that of a patient with Alzheimer's than to that of a genius!
The problem with this study, and all the literature, unfortunately, is upstream:
4 control subjects did not give any information. What is the average size of astrocytes in the general population? Not knowing anything about the variability nature of these cells in the population, a diameter greater than 15 microns of interlaminar terminal masses does not mean anything because we have no idea if Einstein's brain is special, and with respect to whom.
There is also to add that poor brain of Einstein, who perhaps deserves the ultimate rest, is a man of 76 years, a brain subjected to natural aging and neural degeneration. Rather than the brain of the young man who formulated and developed his famous theories and never contradicted several decades before his death.
To find out more about the link between genius and cortical structures would be more useful to study a wide group of genes, physics and other disciplines, live!
Understanding Einstein's brain is a goal a little 'science and a bit' romantic who probably will never be reached. And almost certainly
curiosity, mixed with a bit 'of humble reverence, will remain so.
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