PUBLISHED BY: SURENDER KUMAR
NOVEMBER 16, 2012

  Tweet  

          Share

Legendary physicist Albert Einstein had an "extraordinary" prefrontal cortex - unlike most people’s - which may have made him the remarkable genius that he was, a new study by Florida State University evolutionary anthropologist Dean Falk says.

Falk has described for the first time the entire cerebral cortex of Einstein's brain from an examination of 14 recently photographs discovered at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Portions of Einstein's brain were unlike those of most people and could be related to his extraordinary cognitive abilities.The researchers compared Einstein's brain to 85 "normal" human brains and interpreted its unusual features.

Despite the normal brain size and shape, the prefrontal, somatosensory, primary motor, parietal, temporal and occipital cortices were extraordinary. These may have provided the neurological underpinnings for his visuo-spatial and mathematical abilities.

After Einstein's death in 1955, his brain was removed and photographed from multiple angles with the family’s  permission. Further, it was sectioned into 240 blocks from which histological slides were prepared.