The untold story about Einstein's brain

During the examination of Albert Einstein's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Harvey was the one who discovered the cause of death due to aortic rupture. Later, he was also the holder of the brain for many years.

Discover Einstein's brain

1:15 am April 18 , 1955 , physicist Albert Einstein whispered several German words before venting his last breaths. Because the nurse at Princeton Hospital did not understand German, Einstein's words were gone forever.

Describe the Albert Einstein cortex in Dean Falk's study in 2013. (Photo: BBC)

The cremation ceremony was conducted later that day in Trenton, New Jersey, but Einstein's son Hans Albert noticed that the body in the coffin was not intact . The front page of the New York Times reported, " The brain invented the theory of relativity and nuclear fission has been removed for scientific research."

Hans Albert was furious because he knew that his father once wanted his ashes to be secretly dispersed. But in fact, Einstein's ideas of life made people believe that he accepted the scientific use of his body for research purposes. Harvey convinced Hans to license a study in hopes of shedding light on genius secrets, one of nature's greatest mysteries. However, no research has been done even though many years have passed.

In 1978, a young journalist named Steven Levy found Harvey. " I told him I was writing a story about Einstein's brain. The first thing he told me was, 'I can't help you.' He didn't want to talk," Levy recalls. To convince, Steven followed Harvey to Wichita, Kansas, and knew that Harvey still wanted to publish a scientific report on the topic.

After seeing that brain in glass jars, Steven returned and described them in the New Jersey Monthly: " A piece shaped like a shell, wrinkled in baked clay. A gray fist pale with clear and straight lines, uniform like a sponge, and in a separate bottle, white pink yarns bulge out like dental floss.Other bigger bottles, stocked dozens of translucent rectangular blocks and are about the size of Goldenberg peanut boxes ".

Back in 1955, when approved by Hans Albert, Harvey measured and captured the brain, even asked the artist to draw it again. Harvey divided the brain into 240 small blocks and slices . They were taken to the best anatomical research organizations at the time. However, they all say that Einstein's brain is no different from the normal brain, similar to the result Harvey had received when Einstein's brain was weighed.

The years of inquiry

"It was a great blessing, but it's actually more of a curse. He lost everything since the day he had that brain. Unemployed, divorced, lost his job at Princeton. After the controversy that Harvey attended he never again had the ability to get back to work at the hospital, ' one expert recalled.

When Levy's article was published in 1978, Harvey immediately became the focus.The study of Einstein's brain really began.

Part of the brain in a glass jar.(Photo: BBC)

In the 1985 report, expert Marian Diamond, University of California, USA, showed that four brain specimens contain components called glial cells more than normal brains. Glial cells fix nerve neurons, which provide more oxygen and nutrition. Diamond has shown that stimulating environment can increase this number of cells.

In 1996, expert Britt Anderson at the University of Alabama, USA, published a study on Einstein's prefrontal cortex. He found that the number of neurons is not different from normal brain, but they are closer together, thus processing information more quickly.

Three years later, Sandra Witelson of McMaster University, Canada, said that the lower parietal lobes, the part of the brain associated with spatial awareness and computation, was wider and integrated better than usual . Witelson speculated that this shape of the brain relates to Einstein's way of thinking, in which "the word does not play an important role ".

Anthropologist Dean Falk in 2012 said that the most outstanding feature was that Einstein's brain had an extra wide line in the middle lobe in the brain, which was used to plan and remember. We humans have only these three bars, but Enstein has four. She also found that the cerebral apex of Einstein was asymmetric and that the brain also had a protrusion on the wrinkle line. This is called " omega sign ", popular among left-handed musicians. In fact, Einstein played the violin.

A year later, Falk headed the study of corpus callosum - the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Scientists found Einstein's corpus callosum thicker, creating a more seamless coordination between the two hemispheres of the brain.

However, the question is whether these characteristics are innate or constituted by Einsten's working process.The "omega sign" can be developed when Einstein plays violin often since he was a child, but it is difficult to understand the reasons for forming other characteristics.

After each discovery work, newspapers around the world began to publish information that scientists have discovered the secret of the success of a prominent physicist. However, according to psychologist Terence Hines, all claims stop at a theoretical level.

In fact, scientists admit they are unsure whether the differences in Einstein's brain are closely related to his talent.Einstein is not only a genius, he also speaks many languages, plays and has autism.

In 1998, Thomas Harvey awarded 170 parts of the brain to Dr. Elliot Kraus, Princeton Central Medical University. Krauss says this is an honor, but a burden. Harvey has done that responsibility for 40 years.

Harvey in a BBC documentary in 1994. (Photo: BBC)