Want a Brain Like Einstein?

Baby Einstein

Everyone wishes he had a brain like Albert Einstein’s–but Thomas Harvey had the real thing.

An  NPR story  describes the incredible tale of Harvey, the pathologist who performed Einstein’s autopsy on April 18, 1955.  Fascinated by what accounted for Einstein’s genius, Harvey removed his brain, examined it, put it in a jar, and then brazenly left Princeton Hospital.

Harvey defended his actions by citing a duty to science–a duty he fulfilled by mailing bits of Einstein’s brain to neuroscientists around the country.

One lucky scientist who received a bit of Einstein’s brain in a mayonnaise jar was Marian Diamond at the University of California, Berkeley.  Previous research had shown that Einstein’s brain didn't have more neurons than normal, but Diamond hypothesized his brain had more of another type of brain cell called glial cells.  When she got the brain sample, she did indeed find more of two types of glial cells, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.  

There was an especially high concentration of glial cells in a brain area involved in imagery and complex thinking. Most would agree that Einstein excelled at both.

In the 1980s, most scientists thought that glial cells were basically filler between neurons, which did all the brain’s heavy-lifting.  But in 1990, Stanford University researcher Stephen J. Smith made a significant discovery: glial cells could communicate and transmit chemical signals between neurons throughout the brain.  Lifted from their undeserved reputation as bottom-feeders of the brain, scientists began to recognize their role in learning and memory.

Researchers are  working hard to uncover more brain mysteries like this.  Luckily, as far as this intern knows, the team hasn’t resorted to stealing famous people’s brains… at least not yet…


- Team Shirsa