Parts of famed physicist Albert Einstein's brain were "extraordinary," according to a new study.(Photo: AP)
Albert Einstein's brain was "unlike those of most people," according
to a new study led by Florida State University evolutionary
anthropologist Dean Falk.
"Although the overall size and
asymmetrical shape of Einstein's brain were normal. The prefrontal,
somatosensory, primary motor, parietal, temporal and occipital cortices
were extraordinary," Falk says.
The study, "The Cerebral Cortex
of Albert Einstein: A Description and Preliminary Analysis of
Unpublished Photographs," will be published Friday in the journal Brain.
"Einstein's
brain has an extraordinary prefrontal cortex, which may have
contributed to . . . some of his remarkable cognitive abilities," Falk
notes in the study.
After Einstein died in 1955, his brain was
removed and photographed from several angles. Unfortunately, many of the
photos of the brain were considered lost for more than 55 years.
However, 14 photographs of Einstein's brain were recently uncovered by the National Museum of Health and Medicine
in Silver Spring, Md., as part of a donation from the estate of Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who took the photos.
After
the photos were taken, the brain itself was cut into 240 separate
blocks for analysis, most of which remain at the University Medical
Center in Princeton, N.J., where Einstein's brain was taken after he
died.
The locations of some of Einstein's brain chunks are unknown, unfortunately.
So
the photos of the full, pre-dissected brain are a real find: "Although
it is beyond the scope of this article, we also hope that our
identifications will be useful for workers interested in comparing
Einstein's brain with preserved brains from other gifted individuals."
USA Today