Poking Einstein's Brain

because why not? I mean, my brain might want to see the Grand Canyon again, like purple ble tupperware like purple you know how they would do the like it. I mean I've just heard that back in the day

when they would do like tple tup aware parties. Like one of the whole proofs that you would um that you would put the tup aware through is the typeware can be burped like somethingn do with like air escaping the tupperware where you kind of go like you make it open the lid like it's a little mouth and it goes somehow. That's very fifties and tomato aspect and burping tupperware very fifty stuff, because there's I mean, there's a good reason why we're talking about that, right, because

we were talking about Albert Einstein's brain other. Yeah, and not only all the weird things that happened to it after it was done being Eidenstein, but also about some of the really interesting stuff that we've learned from it about everyone's brain, not just about his. Uh and you know what was unique about it, because ultimately it wasn't

like super unique. It was a human brain. It's not like they cut open his skull and found like a little crab monster that flew here on a saucer and no, no, but his long strange journey of his brain actually ended up or it is contributing to the conversation about what is genius. It really did end up illuminating some aspects of Genius four, which is pretty exciting stuff because he was undoubtedly a genius. Man was brilliant, no doubt, kind of a klutz been in some respects, but but a genius.

Love the lays, but what are you gonna do? So so yeah, he uh, after after he contributed so much to the world, Um, he died and he just wanted to be left alone in death, right, So yeah, supposedly that was his His big request is like, just cremate me, throw my ashes somewhere secrets, because I don't want people worshiping my grave. I don't want, you know, any didn't want. Yeah, don't deify me. I'm just Einstein. Um let me be.

So he's seventy six. He dies of a burst ortic aneurysm, and the autopsy is performed by a guy, a pathologist by the name of Dr Thomas Harvey. Alright, so Harvey mostly kept to Einstein's wishes. He you know, he performed his duties. But he I guess he's looking down at that table and he's looking at that that big skull. He wasn't even that big, just that average looking skull of Einstein's, and he was like, you know, it is a shame to let a good brain go to wet

and it's not uncommon to remove the brain during an outopsy. Right, So yeah, can see how it's sitting out there on the table and he just cannot help him. Yeah, Like I see him like about to put it back in. It's in his hand, you know, dripping, and he's like, this is this is an important I mean, this is his all argument is that this is scientifically an important brain. This is a specimen that needs to be preserved, not

turned into ashes and hidden away. I should put this in a tuppleware um container and uh and and save it and and let allow it to be studied for the good of science, for the good of science. Of course, Einstein's family did not agree, but nonetheless, the Harvey's heart took it. Yeah, and he stuck to his guns, even

though we got fired for it too, right. Yeah, And there was apparently later our right rage when it was revealed that another person, presumably at the same the same location, removed removed Einstein's eyeballs as a souvenir, which is even creep here, and I think a little harder to justify. Yeah, I think I've seen those pop up on eBay that the eyeball. I can't say, you can't authenticate it, but yeah,

you do wonder what happened to those eyeballs. So yeah, I mean this is this is the beginning of what would be a very strange journey for Einstein's brain. Right. Yeah, It's kind of like Weakened at Bernie's, except with just this dude in a brain in a tup aware driving around the country at one point and doing stuff like apparently Harvey's former neighbor was, uh, you know a famous writer of you know, like Naked Lunch and uh, you

know William pretty well known heroin addict that William S Burrows. Yeah. Yeah, And so they went to see Williams Burrows. So it's like I'm pictured him like setting around like playing a backgammon or something, and it's it's william S Burrows Harvey. And then this tup aware with Einstein's brain in it. Yeah.

In just to back up a little bit, Thomas Harvey did try to do the right thing in in his mind right, and he uh, for for years, for something like forty years, he would send a little samples off to other neuroscientists because in mayonnaise jars, in mayonnaise jars, because he felt like there was something that could be found,

and for years nothing was found. In fact, people were like, you know what, stop sending me this, because you know, what we're discovering here is that Einstein's brain doesn't look unique to us. In fact, it's a little bit smaller than the average brain. Um, they didn't see much that would tell them that that this, you know, some sort of markers of genius until he sent off in the Mannad's Jar, uh, four sections of Einstein's brain, the most that he had ever sent off to neuro researcher by

the name of Marion Diamond. So she requested this and three years later, because you know, he's on it, he's he's on a road trip. It's going to take him a while, that the Manna's Jar arrived. And this was a really big moment um for for science really but still and we'll get to it um. You know, it didn't become abundantly clear at first how significant this brain to she was and what Marian Diamond found was so again,

Einstein was a genius. But what is a genius? What makes genius is something you're you're born with the genius brain or do you or does it come from like having the right genius inspiring uh, you know nursery activity, Yes, it acquired or is that inherent? Um? And according to neuro researcher Douglas Fields, genius is kind of a grab

bag of genetic and environmental factors. But then you you hear from people like Dean Keith Simonton and he says attributes like your mental energy and your openness to new experiences is genetic um. It's something you can cultivate, right, like the sense of being open to new experiences. But if if you're sort of born with this attribute, then you're a lot more predisposed to go out and explore

new ideas and experiences. And we already know that when you do that, you're putting your brain through the paces and you're effectively increasing the white matter in your brain.

And turns out white matter is is really important stuff, right, and uh, to to to settle exactly what he is white matter and what is gray matter, because that we've all heard gray matters used to just sort of a generic term for your brain, like like to start using your gray matter there, exercise your gray matter a little, and you never hear white matter, of right, and in

fact white matter. Some people have made the analogy that white matter to scientists has been like dark matter to astrophysicists or a cosmologists, and that for so many years white matter just was completely unknown. We didn't really know what the deal was with white man. We know it's there, but we don't really know what it is. Just cottage cheese or what. Yeah, no, it turns out, is not cottage cheese, yogurt goat cheese. I wonder if the zombie would prefer the white or the gray or is it

like is it like a white and dark meat in turkey? Well, it depends, it depends. Um, I've never heard this this this post before. That's a good question. Let's let's answer that at the end of this podcast. Let's perclate on that. Let's let's not steer completely off of course. Another way of thinking about gray matter that I ran across was a scientific American had had this a bit where they were comparing it to soil. They said, the gray matter is and this is you know where a mental computation

takes plays, memories are stored. Um, this cortex is the top soil of the brain, all right, densely packed neuron all cell bodies, decision making making parts of the nerve cells or neurons. Underneath it, you have the bedrock and this is the white matter. And this feels nearly half the human brain. And and this is a really important thing that we'll discuss here in a minute, is that this is a far larger percentage than found in the brains of other animals like humans are really packing the

white matter. If they are packing the white matter and the Yeah, the white matter consists of bundles of long nerve fibers and they conduct electrical signals between nerve cells

and they connect different parts of the brain together. So it's really important to remember that because within the the white matter or something called glial cells, and we'll talk about that, but again, Einstein's brain contributed to our understanding today which is not even complete of what white matter is and what glial cells are and why they're really important to of genius or just even intelligent thought. UM. I did want to say that that Rex Young he

is uh he is. I believe that he's a psychologist, and he said that highly creative people usually have less white matter integrity and less brain tissue in the frontal lobes. And this is important to remember because when they looked at Einstein's brain, they saw this correlated in there and they say this could be UM disinhibiting, causing a down regulation of the decision making judging center of the brain. So we've talked about this before in a podcast about creativity.

Is that you kind of have to be able to shut off that part of your brain that is saying no. Basically, there have been some some situations where the the inhibiting section of the brain becomes injured or diseased, and you see at what may seem like a burst of creativity, but it's really sort of like the creativity is suddenly unchecked by this inhibition. So it's not it's like column A doesn't increase, but column B decreases. That's right, that's right.

And so it's important to know that if you have you know, white cells packed in one area, that's probably pretty great. Like Enstein had a ton of them in the area that correlates with mathematics, but not so much in the frontal loope. Right, So this allowed him to perhaps turn off that part of his brain that might have made him feel, uh, you know, preoccupied with other thoughts and allowed you know, this other part of his brain to to computate at crazy levels, like to to

to just throw out like sort of genius stereotypes. Like if you have like the type of person who forgets to sleep or forgets to bathe because they're like so into figuring something out, Like that's a situation where the natural voice that comes in and says, hey, maybe we should put this away in bathe, or maybe we should put this away and get back to the other aspects of our life that are important, like that that voice is diminished. Is the laundry list choice? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely,

And um, this was interesting. Some of this came out of a panel that I saw at in New York at the World Science Festival and was called the Enigma of Genius, and artist Julie Tamer was on the panel along with some of the other folks that we were talking about today. Described to me who Julie tam she is responsible for, like the Lion King, that's probably something you know on Broadway that a lot of people know. It's incredible puppetry, all of that. Um, what she's interpreted

a lot of Shakespeare works. Um, Titus is one she you know for film and for for Broadway. But she has a very unique vision, and so she's gotten the MacArthur Genius Grant. She's someone who a lot of people feel like have has changed her field. Okay, cool, Yeah, I think some of her lanking designs were on display at the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts a few years back. Yeah, and and she was sort of saying, well, you know, I'm hesitant to to, you know, call myself a genius

or even define genius. But what she was saying is that in her own creative process, she finds that some of her best ideas come from early morning sleep. Um, and it was interesting. I think it was Douglas Fields who was on the panel, uh that the scientists who said, oh, well, that is when in the frontal lobes are actually less active. So again we're seeing this correlation with frontal lobes disinhibiting

and the percolating of ideas happening. And we're seeing that Einstein had this this low white matter in the frontal lobe. So that's why you inevitably have that dream that is either so awesome that you wish could keep going or it is so horrible that you're like, thank goodness, I actually woke up from that, Because that's the time when the inhibition shuts down in creativity is more likely to

just completely slam you with something unbelievable. Yeah, and I don't have this confirmed, but I have I've heard before that you tend to dream a lot more in the early morning hours anyway, so it makes sense that you

know you would remember those dreams. But um, but again you know, frontal lobes dimmed down, so you can perhaps have your best ideas then, but we should probably get back to white matter any fales, right, Um, so sciences that you're my my white matter was just causing me to just go off and forget the time time table here and yeah, you're about to compose a high who I can tell it was all about like glial self. I saw you notating it there, um And so okay,

back to Einstein's brain. It's been hanging out for forty plus years at this point. He quit traveling in UH nine five. He died in nineteen forty I think is when excuse me, forty years later he had his big road trip ninety six. Yeah, he moved back to New Jersey and he surrenders the remaining pieces of Einstein's brain.

He the pathologist Thomas Hartrty to Dr Elliott Krauss. Yeah, and this is because his road trip was was not really effective, because what he was attempting to do in this road trip is to deliver back the brain to Einstein's granddaughter Evelyn, who was not interested in it. So yes, it returned back to Princeton um and Thomas Harvey actually died in two thousand and seven ruling not even understanding you know that, but what he did indirectly did have

some bearing on how we understand genius today. Well, he hung on the brain for that long. I suspect he really clung to the notion that what he was doing

was a good thing. So yeah, absolutely did Yeah. Uh. So many scientists at this point they've tinkered with the tissue from mind sciins brain, and most of them have done it under a microscope, which isn't telling us a whole lot um And historically neuro anatomous found no clues to to his his brain right again, his brain to the naked eye look like everybody else's because this is the thinking to wear white matter. I don't know what it's doing, but gray matter. That's where the neurons, the

neurons are. He doesn't have any more neurons than anybody else's what they're what they're looking at. And this is the nineteen eighties, and scientists still believe that, um, you know, at this point when they're tinkering around with it. Uh, scientists still believe the important work in the brain is done by neurons. Right. These are the powerhouses. These are the brains of the brain, and they're out there doing you know, specific things, um and mary and diamond. Again,

she observes a disproportionately high number of brain cells. There are not neurons. They're there again what they're called glia, which means glue. Wow, And we will get to that glib right out this quick. Right. That's right. This presentation is brought to you by Intel sponsors of tomorrow. All right, back to the glue, back in the glue goog. Yeah. So this glue, this glia is found in regions of Einstein cerebral cortex, which is involved in complex reasoning, mathematics

and imagery. And so she's seeing that like highly densely packed glial cells. And so this shifts the focus from neurons to glia, and it really upends the fundamental understanding of how the brain works because heretofore we thought that the glial cells were basically just the custodians of the brain. They were clearing away like dead matter essentially, which is like oversimplification of it um and they didn't seem to

have any electrical impulses. And it's not entirely crazy to the idea to think that the brain isn't like a perfect design because I've heard it the you know that there might be something there that is kind of useless, Like because I've heard it proposed before that the brain is kind of like an evolutionary ice cream cone where, um, each level of evolution it's just a new scoop of ice cream cortex because evolution. Not to personify too much is kind of lazy. It's gonna work with what it's got.

It's and it's not gonna I'm really personifying like nuts here. But but but you get the idea. It's the process is not going to go back and fine tune everything. Um. So it's it's it's not ridiculous to think that the white matter wouldn't be doing anything and at the time that that was flying right and it was okay, the white matter it must be helping out the neurotransmitter, right and and just keeping things clean. Um. But glial cells

do communicate, not through synapses, but through gap junctions. That's found there's protein channels that connect one cell to one another like a spaceship talking at the mother station. Okay, but it's non electric communication. Well, they it's they still don't know everything about glia yet. UM, So I'm hesitant

to to say that in any certain terms. UM, but I will say that, you know, in the nineteen nineties, you had to two or excuse me, new techniques that emerged from the development of lasers and personal computers grafted

it onto microscopes to better visualize the way that glia behave. Uh. And then that's when Douglas Fields and other folks began to describe the glia as the other brain at work, because they were seeing that these brain cells that actually were communicating with each other, and they were actually not just communicating with each other at eavesdropping on neural cells. Right, So, Uh, glia actually sense electrical activity in the neural circuits and

they can control it. And Field says that if glia can do this, and it's not unreasonable to assume that they are one of the reasons for the extraordinary capability of the human brain, and ignoring them until now might help explain why the cellular basis for a genius has remained elusive. So what we're talking about here is that the glial cells are giving you the sort of supercharged um ability to communicate with the rest of your brain. So it's really it's sort of like the motor of

the sort of like the engine of the car. It

provides the processor speed for yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in fields book The Other Brain, he says, here are cells that can build the brain of a fetus, direct the connection of its growing axons to wire up the nervous system, repair it after it's injured, release neurotoxic or neuroprotective factors, plug and unplug synapses, give birth to neowe neurons, communicate with the vascular and immune systems, insulate the neuro neural lines of communication, and control the speed of impulse

traffic through them. And some people ask could these cells have anything to do with higher brain function? How could they possibly not? But it's just how he said it. Okay, yeah, So it's important to us though, because what they've discovered is that glial cells are there, they continue to form until like greatly to a certain degree, until you're okay, So what is this point to that you need to use those You need to grow these cells when you

have a chance. Yes, And that it's not it's not just that you are born with a brain and there's your brain. It means that your brain is developing rapidly still up until you're twenty. But essentially that everything, all the experiences, everything that you're doing until h twenty are really going to highly determine this sort of brain that you have for the rest of your life. But and it doesn't even stop there. But we're just saying that

the bulk of the brain is being developed. Wow, So I dare say, are under twenty listeners are doing exactly the right thing by listening to this podcast right now? Yeah? Yeah, And I mean this that's the other thing. You know. I hope that you're playing chess. I hope that that

your mathlete um, you know. I hope that that you're you're messing around with music, because these are again, all these things, all these paces that you're putting your brain through, all these new experiences, are really helping to shape what your brain is wants to be, yes, yeah, or what you wanted to be really yeah, just throw some stuff at it, see what sticks and d open to new exactly. I mean, it's it's all about like I mean, it's

kind of like beliefs. Try believing something new every day, you know, learn about learn about something new every day to find out about the different system and don't like close your mind off to different visions of you know what reality consists? Up? That's right, because I mean you can actually see it. Um you know this, this sort of this transformation take place in your brain. You see new pathways being created. How cool? Is that? Cool? Now?

What happened now? After twenty though it's not necessarily it's not closes because I know that the over twenty listeners are like, well, great, what am I doing? Waste of my time? And they like switch off and go straight to I don't know whatever you listen to if you don't want to learn anything, Um, I don't. Yeah, just silent. That's just like Islands silence. No, I think it's not Kardashian Kardashians. Yeah, not to be conclude fused with Kardassians

right from the start from Star Trek. No, yes, exactly. Yeah, because I was talking with some people the other day, what if there was a show meet the Cardassians. Surely somebody has done a periody of that already. But anyway, for over twenty, white matter over twenty, Yes, hope for the future for people with brains that are older than twenty because white matter continues to develop into our forties. I get past forty, so you know, over the hill

not so much. Recent studies showed up versus teaching juggling to healthy adults, showed that learning the new skill caused white matter changes. So just just juggling alone and healthy adults can can you know, so continue to exercise your brain, you know, because you can still beef it up, That's right.

And we've talked about neural plasticity before too, and we just keep learning more and more about this, and I think this is the important takeaway with this well as well, is that we still don't know everything about the brain. We've talked about the Blue Brain Project, trying to map the human in brain, trying to figure out, you know, the seat of consciousness, all these really exciting cool things

that are happening. And just recently we saw an article about how they're using skin cells to turn into brain cells. Oh yeah, this was this is a pretty awesome idea. Yeah, And and I mean basically what they're trying to do is treat Parkinson's with us. But I mean the the idea is that you could apply this to other areas in the brain and actually help to repair, as you know,

parts of the brain that have been damaged. Yeah, and it also really turns the whole question on its head that we've asked before, like what happens what's it like to have a three hundred, four hundred year old brain? And and if we could live to be nine, like we discussed in nine nine nine birthday candles, if you could live to be eight hundred years old, would you have like this cranky old eight hundred year old brain in your you know, your your nice young body? Why

would I U? Why would I juggle your kids with juggling? And you know you just set on a bunch of money and hate everything. But non possibly not, because if you could continue to um to liven up the your white matter, um, you could continue to have this uh, this changing brain. You can continue to have near plasticity, you know, well into your eight hundreds at least, right,

which makes that proposition a lot be all right? Right, when we talked about the downside about this is that you know, of course you've talked about all sort of becoming, you know, Charlie Sheen's at some point we're all too given to our demons like I will become a horrible person and live forever. No yeah, yeah, no, and he's

going to pull through. Okay, But but I mean the point is is that, you know, if this technology bears some fruit, and even if it's you know, longevity of another fifty years, it's great to know that we have these things that are at our fingertips. They're strying to developed and actually help us live healthily, minded and literally at our fingertips. Because yeah, there you go, nicely done.

All right. Well, Einstein's brain, um, which is not currently on the road, but hopefully it'll go on to her against it. Yeah yeah. And zombies, what do you did you ever make a decision on them about great gray meat versus white meat? I don't know. I just don't know. Generally they don't seem to be that concern. But I bet they're, like, I've explored the idea, there's some and they're going to be particular about it. Yeah, they'll sit around and critique the glia cells. Yeah cool. Well, I

have some listener mail here. Um, let's see which one I want to read. You know these look good? Okay, Um, here's one from Timothy. He says, hello, stuff to blow your mind crew, that's us. During your iPod People podcast, you had mentioned briefly how repetitive music can help during writing. This used to be my experience during high school in college when I would pocket my discmand remember those and

play trance music during chores. It would cause me to enter the altered state you described where I would tune out and go and go, and to quote autopilot, the real life would become a dream like background in my thoughts. I found that my most creative thinking would occur at these times, and I often find myself stopping to run off and scribble down my thoughts. Unfortunately, like a really

good dream, the written version usually lost something in translation. Incidentally, at my current job as a digital artist, I've been known to have a similar experience during your your podcast. I'm a science and philosophy nuts, so I'd love to hear a podcast about cellular automata, the holographic principle, or the EPR paradox. Thanks, we will add those, sup, We'll check it out. Uh. Well, that's awesome. I love I mean, I especially love the idea that that people can listen

to what we're discussing. If some of these ideas were bringing up and then turn that into something else, uh, you know, creatively. Uh oh yeah. I always feel like each podcast has, you know, possibilities with fiction, blank and age. You can't take you pretty much any of this. And I think there's actually is there a film or a book about Einstein's branding on the road. Um, I don't know.

I don't know that it's nonfiction, but if if anybody hasn't been there is, there is a nonfiction version for sure. But for fiction, I don't know. I just keep thinking the idea of it, like being put into a robot like in RoboCop too, where they had the brain and the big machine that battles robocops. But but he wouldn't be battling robocot naturally, he'd be womanizing and working on relativity. Yeah. Um, well cool, let's see, do we have anything else to

read here? Yes? Here's another one from Alex. Alex says, I was recently introduced to your podcast by my best friend as well as my sister, who both swore to me that if I had a podcast, it would be

like this one. I travel a lot for work and haven't seen many of my friends and months and haven't seen my family since Thanksgiving, but in the last month I have downloaded well over a hundred podcasts podcasts podcast from you as well as your friends at How Stuff Works UH and Stuff Missed in History, and spent hours listening intently, a couple of times actually taking notes. Though none of you ever got to hear me responding to you in my car, hotel or my tiny coach seat.

I get strange looks now more than ever. I feel like we would get along if you could uh. Though the majority of my time is spent alone and away from home, during the last few weeks, I've begun to feel like I have friends with me wherever I go. Thank you all for your company and your appreciation for obscure knowledge. Your friend Alex ps, you two have the best intro music. Look at that there was this great stuff for everybody with an ear shot. I know that.

Yeah r music. Yeah, thanks Alex cool. So Hey, if you guys have stuff you want to share with us, especially if you have any thoughts. I don't know if you have a chunk of mine Stun's brain in your house in a Manna's jar of a lot of more sent out maybe you do, um, but no any any thoughts you have about the continued development of your own brain or the brains of those around you, UH let us know. You can share it with us on Facebook

or Twitter. We are blow the Mind on both of those, and you can also drop us a line at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.