Albert Einstein's brain

 Albert Einstein's brain 

By ~ Dr Suzie Edge from the book ‘Vital Organs’

Born in 1879, Albert Einstein became a theoretical physicist.

He is often said to be the smartest thinker of all time. Hear the word 'genius' and it's likely that the moustachioed, wacky-haired image of Albert Einstein pops into your mind. He gave us the general theory of relativity, bringing together four papers that he wrote about his thought experiments. He gave us theories in quantum physics that we all pretend to understand. Not even a genius can live forever though, not yet, and on 18 April
1955 Einstein died in the hospital at Princeton, New Jersey. He died from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was seventysix years old. Einstein had known that there were people interested in getting their hands on his brain after his death.

He was clear that he did not want his brain taken, dissected or displayed. He wanted to be cremated 'so that people will not worship at my bones. He knew people would want to do that.

So, Einstein might have understood the universe, but he also understood human nature just as well. His wishes were ignored.

Within a few hours of his death, his brain was removed. The pathologist on call was Thomas Stoltz Harvey. He must have been delighted when he took the call. Albert Einstein just happened to be his hero and he got to perform the autopsy.

After establishing the cause of death, Harvey betrayed his hero's wishes. He kept Einstein's brain. He removed the eyes too, handing them to Einstein's ophthalmologist. The brain went into a cookie jar where it was stored - well, most of it was - for forty years. He sliced into it 240 times, sectioned it, prodded and poked at it, and he took photographs of it. He studied every tiny aspect and he sent several pieces to labs and scientists all over the US and the world. What was he expecting to see? Different shapes? Different sizes? A little signpost on the brain's cortex: this way to genius?
Was he expecting to unearth something that could be recre-ated? Could we just pinpoint and activate genius mode? It didn't make the doctor any smarter, but various interesting observations were made.

It was noticed, when looking through the microscope, that the concentration of glial cells was higher than average in Einstein's brain. Glial cells form part of the structure of the central nervous tissue. They support the neurons, provide oxygen and nutrients, and produce the myelin that surrounds the nerves cells. Einstein's increased rate of these cells presumably put in more work to support his grey matter. Researchers also observed that in Einstein's brain, the corpus collosum had much thicker connections. The corpus collosum is a structure that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain, allowing for increased communication between areas that deal with the likes of abstract thinking, decision-making, visual processing.

Perhaps Einstein was born that way, and with these increased connections he was able to be so much more creative than us average thinkers. Or was it that Einstein's thoughts and work created a thickened corpus collosum because of neuroplasticity shaping his brain? The lesser-mentioned reality is that most of Einstein's brain was no different from comparison specimens, those that were deemed normal or average. In the late 1990s an American writer called Michael Paterniti got in touch with Dr Harvey, who was by then in his eighties.

They talked about the history of Einstein's brain and the pathologist expressed that he would like to give it a new home. Paterniti offered to pick up the doctor (and the brain) in his car, and Harvey agreed. It took them eleven days to drive, cookie jar of brain in tow, from Kansas to Hamilton, Ontario, where they delivered it to McMaster University where it lives today.
More pieces and slices on microscopy slides are held in the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia and in the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Maryland. There will be more sections too, in dusty collections around the world. There was also a slice given to a Japanese mathematician who was making a documentary in search of his hero Einstein. He asked Harvey for a piece and the doctor obliged.

There has never really been anything that stands out, any obvious difference that would point us to a specific brain having belonged to either an academic or a criminal. Maybe they aren't that different underneath. Maybe it's the choices that are made or the circumstances they found themselves in, and not the underlying anatomy, that led them to their life decisions.

We keep looking, in the hope that one day some new technology, a stronger microscope or new understanding will tell us more about the differences between us within our brains. To that end, the brains of over two hundred Russian scientists are currently kept in the Russian Brain Institute in Moscow.

They await the day they can shine once more. Lenin's brain sits there too.
In 1945, ten years before the natural death of Einstein, Mussolini, the fascist dictator, was executed. He was shot and his body was hung up by the feet alongside that of his mistress.

Onlookers threw abuse at the dead bodies. What was left of Mussolini's corpse was kept concealed away for years to prevent reprisals, but not all of his remains remained hidden. His brain was taken by the Americans who wanted to study the mind of a dictator. Amongst other things, they tested the brain for syphilis. The test was inconclusive, but testing was not the only agenda here. The brain was also a trophy.

Part of that brain was returned to the Mussolini family in 1966, but not all of it. Some was kept in America and came to light in 2009 when Mussolini's granddaughter made a phone call to the police. She reported that someone was selling vials on the auction site eBay that were supposedly brain segments and blood belonging to Benito Mussolini. Fascist memorabilia are still hot property. The sellers were looking for €15,000 for Il Duce's body parts. If the stories of the corpse being kicked and even shot in the head as it hung on display are true, it can't have been in very good condition. Even in the twenty-first century, body parts were still being stolen as trophies.

Source ~ ‘Vital Organs’ by Dr Suzan Edge