Albert Einstein's brain

Albert Einstein's brain

was a medicine resident at Montefiore Medical Center in New York (University Hospital for the Albert Einstein College of Medicine), I had the honour o...

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was a medicine resident at Montefiore Medical Center in New York (University Hospital for the Albert Einstein College of Medicine), I had the honour of taking care of the late Harry Zimmerman, a famous neuropathologist, who was one of the founders of the medical college. Zimmerman told me the tale of how difficult it had been to convince Albert Einstein to allow his name to be used for the Medical College. He also told me that he had obtained from Einstein permission to examine his brain after his death in search of some anatomical marker of exceptionality. According to Zimmerman (who told me that Einstein’s brain was absolutely normal), Einstein’s permission was conditioned on his promise not to publish the results of such a necropsy. Roberto Salvatori Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA (e-mail: [email protected]) 1

Witelson S, Kigar DL, Harvey T. The exceptional brain of Albert Einstein. Lancet 1999; 353: 2149–53.

Authors’ reply Sir—With respect to Einstein’s right hemisphere, A M Galaburda agrees with our report that there is no parietal operculum, but suggests that this finding is commonplace. He offers as evidence a photograph of the right hemisphere of a 7-month-old fetus because it also lacked a parietal operculum. Galaburda notes that the fetal right hemisphere did not have the extra knob of tissue that was present on the left side. This finding demonstrates early asymmetry, but does not support his position. Galaburda states that he presented a fetal brain because morphology is easier to see “when sulcal exuberance typical of developed brains is absent”. However, as can be seen in his figure, the insulae are exposed because opercularisation is incomplete at this fetal stage. One cannot judge mature gyral/sulcal morphology from the fetal brain. Galaburda also cites LeMay and Culebras’ arteriographic study. They reported a larger left than right parietal operculum, but a right parietal operculum is labelled in each of their three figures and they do not in fact report absence of the right parietal operculum for any case. With reference to Einstein’s left hemisphere, Galaburda states that a pareital operculum exists in the region we ascertained to be the postcentral gyrus. He cites a line sketch by Critchley adapted from Symington, and seems to think that the sulcus within Einstein’s postcentral gyrus

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Einstein’s left hemisphere Stippled area: postcentral gyrus; PC, postcentral sulcus; PCs, postcentral sulcus superior limb; PCi, postcentral sulcus inferior limb; SF, Sylvian fissure; S, end of SF; SM, supramarginal gyrus; IP, intraparietal sulcus; C, central sulcus, rct, sulcus retrocentralis transversus; scp, sulcus subcentralis posterior. Note the anterior bowing of the postcentral gyrus which could have resulted from exuberant growth of the inferior parietal lobule (adapted from our report).

(see our figure) is the postcentral sulcus. It is not—it is the sulcus retrocentralis transversus (r c t), a tertiary sulcus which frequently appears within the postcentral gyrus. 1 The short sulcus rising from the Sylvian fissure (SF) below rct is the sulcus subcentralis posterior (s c p) (figure) which by definition occurs within the postcentral gyrus. 1–3 The deep sulcus, which is inferior to the intraparietal sulcus and connects with both the superior limb of the postcentral sulcus and the intraparietal sulcus (figure), cannot be any sulcus but the inferior limb of the postcentral sulcus. The parietal operculum is the anterior portion of the supramarginal gyrus, which typically surrounds the ascending ramus of SF, as clearly documented in the six famous maps collated by Braak4 and in all specimens in the atlases of Ono et al2 and Connolly. 3 The continuity of the ascending SF and the postcentral sulcus in Einstein’s hemispheres precludes the possibility of an uninterrupted supramarginal gyrus in Einstein’s brain. Accordingly, the entire stippled region (figure) is the postcentral gyrus, and not parietal operculum. The photographs of Einstein’s brain, tissue block maps, embedded blocks, caliper measurements and histological slides were all provided by the pathologist, Thomas Harvey, who removed Einstein’s brain in the presence of the executor of Einstein’s estate, Otto Nathan. We were able to match the photographs with each of the above. In response to Roberto Salvatori’s query, as indicated in our report, consent to study Einstein’s brain was given to Harvey in 1955 by Einstein’s elder son, Hans Albert Einstein and by Nathan, with the proviso that the results be published in scientific or medical journals.

Galaburda doubts that structural correlates of variation in ability will be found. Our report suggested several reasons why associations have not been identified in the past. The results of our study emphasise that specific abilities might be related to specific anatomical features. Schlaug et al 5 reported an association between musical ability and size and morphology of the planum temporale (auditory association cortex), which lends support to this idea. *Sandra F Witelson, Debra L Kigar, Thomas Harvey Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8N 3Z5 1

Bailey P, von Bonin G. The isocortex of man. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1951. 2 Ono M, Kubik S, Abernathey CD. Atlas of the cerebral sulci. New York: George Thieme Verlag, 1990. 3 Connolly CJ. External morphology of the primate brain. Springfield, Il: CC Thomas, 1950. 4 Braak H. Architectonics of the human telencephalic cortex. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1980. 5 Schlaug G, Jancke L, Huang Y, Steinmetz H. In vivo evidence of structural brain asymmetry in musicians. Science 1995; 267: 699–701.

Sir—In a study1 that purports to look at the extraordinariness of individuals, it is odd that the control group consists of only group means. Indeed, there were many things that Einstein was not good at (by his own admission), so his extraordinary intellect applies to but a small subset of human intellectual functions. The question is not, how smart he was, but how was he smart? The study indicates that inferior parietal areas were unusually large, which is not surprising in view of contemporary social and neurosciences knowledge about the relation of the brain to cognitive function. However, the study does not elucidate whether these areas were mainly enlarged through use rather than constitution, although the latter is presumed. In any event, instead of comparing Einstein’s brain to outdated Weschler adult intelligence scores that tap truncated aspects of linguistic and mathematical skills in so-called normal individuals, a more appropriate comparison group would have been a collection of physicists and mathematicians and other groups of individuals with abilities similar to those of Einstein (eg, motor imagery in choreographers; visuospatial cognition in architects). Indeed, brainimaging techniques may have been helpful here.

THE LANCET • Vol 354 • November 20, 1999