Einstein’s Brain “Markedly different” from norm
The article that I have read is about how Albert Einstein’s gray matter in his
brain has differences then the average persons. They are not sure though if it
has any links between his great intelligence though. Dr. Dahlia W. Zaidel of
UCLA was the researcher on this project.
She started out by investigating to see if the brain of a genius might show
special features. She then examined two slides made from Einstein’s brain after
his death in 1955. The slides contained samples of his hippocampus. She then
compared Einstein’s brain with tissue from ten individuals of ordinary
intelligence from the ages of 22 to 84 qt their time of death.
Einstein’s neurons on the left side of the brain were consistently larger then
those on the right side. Dr. Zaidel noted that these marking were much
different from those seen in the other brain of people with normal
intelligence.
She noted, that the neurons in the left hippocampus imply that Einstein’s brain
may have had stronger nerve cell connections between the hippocampus and the
neocortex than his right. She noted that “The neocortex is where detailed,
logical, analytical and innovated thinking takes place.”
With the difference in the size of the neurons are unknown, whether they
occurred at birth during development or as an abnormality. She said also that
she didn’t know if this asymmetry is related to his genius or not.
At the end it said that normal brain tissue is usually available for study but
there is no brain bank for geniuses. She does hope in the future to obtain
tissue from very bright scientists, which would make it possible to place
Einstein’s brain of genius.
I thought this research article was very interesting. That would be really
interesting if they could find out how and why Einstein was so smart. It would
be really neat to see.