June 18, 1999. Copyright 1999. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

EINSTEINÕS BRIAN WAS LARGER THAN NORMAL

LONDON, June 18, Graphic News: WE ALWAYS suspected something must have made Albert Einstein smarter than the rest of us.
Now, researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario think they have found out why the father of the theory of relativity was a genius. After comparing his brain to 90 normal brains preserved at McMaster they discovered that the part of the brain thought to be related to mathematical reasoning Š the inferior parietal region Š was 15 percent wider on both sides than normal.
Furthermore, they found that the groove that normally runs from the front of the brain to the back did not extend all the way in EinsteinÕs case. That finding could have applications even to those with more pedestrian levels of intelligence.
ŅThat kind of shape was not observed in any one of our brains and is not depicted in any atlas of the human brain,Ó said Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist who led the study, published in this weekÕs issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal.
ŅI would term this anatomy unique,Õ she said.
Einstein, who overturned classical physics with his general and special theories of relativity, died in 1955 of a ruptured aorta. His brain was removed and preserved by Dr. Thomas Harvey, who worked with Witelson on the new study.
Since EinsteinÕs death and the initial examination of his brain, Witelson said, there has been no overall study of its anatomy.
The researchers compared EinsteinÕs brain with the preserved brains of 35 men and 56 women known to have normal intelligence when they died.
With the menÕs brains, they conducted two separate comparisons Š first between Einstein's brain and all the men, and next between his brain and those of the eight men who were similar in age to Einstein when they died.
They found that, overall, EinsteinÕs brain was the same weight and had the same measurements from front to back as all the other men, which Witelson said confirms the belief of many scientists that focusing on overall brain size as an indicator of intelligence is not the way to go.
Witelson theorized that the partial absence of the groove in EinsteinÕs brain may be the key, because it might have allowed more neurons in this area to establish connections between each other and work together more easily.
Witelson added that understanding such links may someday improve medical care for people who suffer strokes, which can cause serious brain damage, usually to just one side of the brain.
/ENDS