Newly Released Einstein Brain Photos Hint At the Anatomy of Genius

scibri writes "Photographs of Einstein's brain taken shortly after his death, but never before analysed in detail, have now revealed that it had several unusual features, providing tantalizing clues about the neural basis of his extraordinary mental abilities. The most striking observation was 'the complexity and pattern of convolutions on certain parts of Einstein's cerebral cortex,' especially in the prefrontal cortex, and also parietal lobes and visual cortex. The prefrontal cortex is important for the kind of abstract thinking that Einstein would have needed for his famous thought experiments on the nature of space and time, such as imagining riding alongside a beam of light. The unusually complex pattern of convolutions there probably gave the region a larger-than-normal surface area, which may have contributed to his remarkable abilities."

Comments

Re: Stop deifying this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, "The Hubble". Edwin Hubble to be precise. His discoveries were so important that even decades after his death, NASA named a space telescope after him.

Re: Stop deifying this guy

[Black Parrot]

Here's the relevant bit on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble#The_universe_goes_beyond_the_Milky_Way_galaxy

It's hard to imagine how different the universe must have seemed to them before that.