Einstein's brain remains an enigma 64 years after his death

Every era had its genius. Aristotle was for the Greeks, Alfonso the Wise for the Spaniards, Descartes for the French (or perhaps Pascal); Kant could be for the Germans as Mendeleev or Pávlov for the Russians of the 19th century. Newton was, without a doubt, for the English of the eighteenth century. For us, the word "genius" is synonymous with
Einstein, whose theory of relativity gave the twentieth century, not only a mathematical tool for the study of physics and astronomy, but a philosophical element foreign to the physicist's intentions. Einstein relativized the behavior of the elements, but never thought of doing such things with the behaviors of men.

As he was not understood in his lucubrations, it was perhaps not in his posthumous desires either. Apparently, Einstein had been very restrictive in his final considerations: he did not want his body to be an object of worship towards his person, that is why he had ordered to be cremated and to disperse his ashes. Upon his death on April 18, 1954, his body was subjected to a routine autopsy under the supervision of Dr. Otto Nathan, friend of the deceased and executor of his legacy. There was the abdominal aneurysm that had caused his death. Dr. Thomas S. Harvey was the pathologist responsible for the necropsy and removal of Einstein's brain.

After a brief ceremony, the corpse was burned to ashes and thrown into a river according to a secret rite. Einstein's entire body disappeared, with the exception of his brain, which remained in Harvey's possession with the consent of his friend, but his family did not know it.

Every era had its genius. Aristotle was for the Greeks, Alfonso the Wise for the Spaniards, Descartes for the French (or perhaps Pascal); Kant could be for the Germans as Mendeleev or Pávlov for the Russians of the 19th century. Newton was, without a doubt, for the English of the eighteenth century. For us, the word "genius" is synonymous with Einstein

It did not take long to convince Nathan, also a scientist, of the importance of being able to study such a wonderful instrument of creation. Dr. Harvey then put the brain into formaldehyde and reported his plans to Dr. Zimmerman – his superior at Princeton Hospital and also a friend of Einstein – who claimed to have asked the physicist for the relevant authorization to examine his nervous tissue. We badume that Einstein conceded to be the object of that, his last legacy to science.

Two days after the autopsy, Zimmerman announced that he would give a press conference on the studies to which he would submit the engineering gray matter. The family, informed by the media, launched the cry in the sky. Who had allowed all this? What about walking around exposing the brain of "daddy" as if it was a strange specimen to badyze? It was necessary to calm the spirits before everyone agreed on the spirit of the scientific mind. On April 28, the family issued the following statement: "Authorization is granted to study the brain tissue of the doctor
Albert Einstein, but with the express and categorical condition of maintaining the strictest privacy, without announcement or publication of any kind, except that the results are made public by medical journals to the scientific world ".

From that moment, no one has heard of Einstein's brain.

In 1978, twenty-three years after this episode, the director of the New Jersey Monthly had commissioned a young journalist, Steven Levy, to discover what was the fate of Einstein's brain. Levy acquired Einstein's latest biography and found there autopsy practiced by Dr. Harvey and the brain that he had saved. He looked for it, but it was not at Princeton. Anyway, he was quick to find it since he was in Wichita, Kansas. There was Levy to interview him. During the meeting, Harvey was evasive: "I do not know, I can not help you, I do not remember …". The reporter remained motionless in front of him until he finally broke up: "I have it right here," he said. He got up and looked for two cans containing Costa cider. There was what remained of the most brilliant spirit of the twentieth century, floating in formaldehyde inside a can of cider.

After a brief ceremony, the corpse was burned to ashes and thrown into a river according to a secret rite. Einstein's entire body disappeared, not to mention his brain, which remained in Harvey's possession with the consent of his friend, but his family did not know it.

After scientific reconciliation with the family, no agreement had been found on the most appropriate way to study Einstein neurons. The question was long. Dr. Harvey has become the guardian of the brain. Since then, three articles have appeared, which do not shed much light on the mechanisms of intelligence and on the origin of genius.

The first of them was published in Experimental Neurology in 1985. The authors were Marian C. Diamond, Arnold B. Scheibel and Harvey himself. Diamond and Scheibel had contacted the disoriented doctor after hearing in the newspapers where Einstein's brain was. They proposed a working methodology: count the different types of cells in different parts of the cortex – neurons and glial cells (support and nutrition) – and compare them, in number, with the averages found in eleven men 64 years The cortical areas 9 and 39 were chosen because the former are considered an important area for behavior, attention and memory planning. Zone 39 is located in the parietal lobe and is responsible for badociative and language functions. The study showed that Einstein had more glial cells in these areas than neurons. The explanation for this disproportion is that the brain of genius was more in need of energy than his colleague. Much was discussed about the scientific procedure adopted and the group used as a parameter, being those twelve years younger than Einstein at the time of his death. None of these findings were definitive or revealing, and it was suggested that these variations might be due to Asperger's syndrome, suspected of having Einstein.

Meanwhile, Dr. Harvey lived with his trophy. During those years, he traveled to Florida with his scientific memory to show it to the sage's granddaughter. We do not know how the lady took the partial presence of her grandfather.

It took another eleven years before another group had the opportunity to study the big brain. This second article was published in Neuroscience Letter in 1996. The first thing that caught our attention when badyzing this brain was its weight significantly lower than that of a normal man (1,230 kilograms against 1,400), although that this subject to see with the intellectual capacity. Cuvier, a famous nineteenth-century biologist, had studied the brains of primitive populations and took this weight as a sign of intellectual and racial superiority. But, as in the case of Einstein, there are also other striking situations. For example, Leon Gambetta, the famous French politician, weighed only 1,100 kilograms, while that of the Russian writer Turgenev weighed 2 kilograms and that of the poet Lord Byron, 2,300 kilograms. However, Anatole France weighed a small kilogram and that of Marylin Monroe, 1400. Was she the most lucid actress that Gambetta, France and Einstein? This theory would not even have been born, if Cuvier could have weighed his brain, barely 1200 kg, even smaller than that of the starry lace.

Returning to Einstein, another disturbing fact is that the happy-sector 9 cortex was thinner than the other five controls, but that the neurons were more numerous per square millimeter.

The third and final article was published by The Lancet in 1999. It has been shown that the cortex of Einstein's brain had an abnormal number of grooves, particularly in the parietal area. However, the lateral groove was shorter and difficult to distinguish. Could this way have better connections to allow mathematical badociations? Pure speculation.

The truth is that the brain of a genius continues to navigate aimlessly in the world of science. No institution has shown interest in keeping it. Neither the Einstein College of Medicine in New York, nor the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, nor the Smithsonian Institution in Washington have expressed the desire to preserve what remains of this great man. His brain, which in life has revolutionized the sciences, has now become a mbad of neurons floating in formalin in a cider box, waiting for someone to discover their secrets.

Another proof of the misunderstanding

relativity

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