Heady Theories On The Contours Of Einstein's Genius

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Seeking signs of genius, a researcher recently reconstructed the shape of Albert Einstein's brain with techniques normally used to analyze fossils. This mold of thought, she believes, reveals the imprint of a rare intelligence that transformed our understanding of space, time and energy.By studying photographs of Einstein's brain taken at his death in 1955, paleoanthropologist Dean Falk at Florida State University identified a dozen subtle variations in its surface that may have heightened his ability to see physics in a new way. Her research suggests how the brain shaped the inner life of the 20th century's most famous mind.'Einstein's brain is really unusual,' says Dr. Falk. 'On the surface at least, it looks different than others. It's suggestive.'Like every human brain, Einstein's was an island universe of thought.The insights that revolutionized physics were the product of 25 billion neurons linked by billions of connections -- an essence of intellect so densely compacted that a thimble full of brain matter normally holds 50 million neurons and a trillion synapses. His ideas and impressions raced through a maze of 93,000 miles of insulated nerve fibers at 200 miles per hour.No one knows exactly how intelligence and originality arises from the action of so many special cells. Researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., recently discovered that patterns of electrical brain activity, as measured by electroencephalograms, usually are different among creative thinkers than among more methodical problem solvers.An expert on ancient neural evolution, Dr. Falk is accustomed to studying brains that no longer exist. She reviewed 25 autopsy photographs. She could see that Einstein's brain had an unusual pattern of grooves and ridges along its parietal lobes, suggesting a rearrangement of areas associated with mathematical, visual and spatial cognition.Although he published 300 scientific papers, Einstein couldn't easily describe the way his mind worked. 'A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way,' he once said. His thoughts moved 'in a wildly speculative way.' As a theorist, he sometimes solved physics problems by imagining himself riding alongside a light beam or falling in an elevator. 'I rarely think in words at all. A thought comes and I may try to express it in words afterwards ...I have no doubt that our thinking goes on for the most part without the use of signs and, furthermore, largely unconsciously.'Told that many people only think in words, he laughed.By studying Einstein's neural remains, researchers like Dr. Falk pursue an inquiry at the confluence of science, folklore and medical history. For a century, scientists have compared famous brains in hopes of finding the link between neural structure and talent. It's heady work. 'The brain is as close as we can get to the physical essence of what makes us human,' she says.To this end, Soviet scientists once conducted top-secret studies of Lenin's brain, seeking in its dead cells the intellectual seeds of social revolution, says University of Houston political economist Paul Gregory, who discovered the 1936 medical report hidden in Communist Party archives. More recently, researchers at the Institute of Medicine in Juelich, Germany, took apart the brain of a translator fluent in 60 languages, in hopes of finding the secret of his exceptional language ability. In both cases, the findings were inconclusive.By itself, brain size is no true measure of intellect, comparative studies confirm. Einstein's brain weighed 2.7 pounds, less than most men. The brain of 1921 Nobel laureate Anatole France weighed just 2.1 pounds. At three pounds, Lenin's brain was exactly average. The brain of Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev outweighed them all at 4.4 pounds.To understand the anatomical reasons our mental capacities often differ, researchers must look instead for subtle distinctions among neurons and synapses in structures associated with specific abilities. Nonetheless, the effort to study Einstein's brain was controversial from the start.When Einstein died in New Jersey at the age of 76, an eccentric hospital pathologist named Thomas Harvey conducted a routine autopsy. But he removed the physicist's brain for later study -- apparently acting on his own authority. He soaked it in preservative and cut it into 240 pieces, each containing about two teaspoons of cerebral tissue. He mounted 1,000 slivers on microscope slides for study.It was decades, though, before Dr. Harvey could persuade anyone to seriously examine them. Einstein's brain samples languished in a cider box next to the beer cooler under his desk.Not until 1985 did the first scientific analysis appear. Pioneering neuroscientist Marion Diamond at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered that, in some tissue samples, Einstein's brain had more cells nurturing each neuron than normal. These well-tended cells, located in a region associated with mathematical and language skills, might help explain the physicist's 'unusual conceptual powers,' she speculates.Then Dr. Harvey contacted neuropsychologist Sandra Witelson at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. An authority on cognition and comparative neuroanatomy, Dr. Witelson had assembled the world's largest collection of normal brains, all cross-matched and cataloged by intelligence tests and behavioral surveys conducted while the donors were still alive.'Unannounced, he sent me packages -- packets of slides -- just addressed to me without a return address,' Dr. Witelson recalls. 'These slides of Einstein's brain kept coming through the mail, unannounced and uninsured.'She compared Einstein's brain samples with dozens of normal men and women in her brain bank. Most of his brain was unremarkable, but she found that one area associated with visual and spatial reasoning -- the inferior parietal region -- was 15% larger than normal. Even more unusual, his brain lacked a special fissure there, effectively fusing two key brain regions into one.'I can't prove that those were the regions that Einstein was using when he was thinking about relativity,' says Dr. Witelson. 'We suggested that anatomy could have given him an advantage in three-dimensional thinking.'No one knows whether the quirks of Einstein's brain structure were the cause or effect of his genius. Some of his gift, no doubt, was hereditary. But his research required intense study, and such concentrated effort can alter the brain physically. Regular meditation, for example, can increase the size of brain areas that regulate emotion, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Laboratory of Neuroimaging reported last week in the journal Neuroimage.Indeed, a curious knob-like feature that Dr. Falk saw in pictures of Einstein's motor cortex might be due to his early musical training. It resembled a structure detected in neural studies of experienced pianists and violinists, caused by hand exercises.'I wish Einstein were alive,' says Dr. Falk, 'and we could ask a little more about how he thinks.'Robert Lee Hotz
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var en_bodytext="Seeking signs of genius, a researcher recently reconstructed the shape of Albert Einstein's brain with techniques normally used to analyze fossils. This mold of thought, she believes, reveals the imprint of a rare intelligence that transformed our understanding of space, time and energy.By studying photographs of Einstein's brain taken at his death in 1955, paleoanthropologist Dean Falk at Florida State University identified a dozen subtle variations in its surface that may have heightened his ability to see physics in a new way. Her research suggests how the brain shaped the inner life of the 20th century's most famous mind.'Einstein's brain is really unusual,' says Dr. Falk. 'On the surface at least, it looks different than others. It's suggestive.'Like every human brain, Einstein's was an island universe of thought.The insights that revolutionized physics were the product of 25 billion neurons linked by billions of connections -- an essence of intellect so densely compacted that a thimble full of brain matter normally holds 50 million neurons and a trillion synapses. His ideas and impressions raced through a maze of 93,000 miles of insulated nerve fibers at 200 miles per hour.No one knows exactly how intelligence and originality arises from the action of so many special cells. Researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., recently discovered that patterns of electrical brain activity, as measured by electroencephalograms, usually are different among creative thinkers than among more methodical problem solvers.An expert on ancient neural evolution, Dr. Falk is accustomed to studying brains that no longer exist. She reviewed 25 autopsy photographs. She could see that Einstein's brain had an unusual pattern of grooves and ridges along its parietal lobes, suggesting a rearrangement of areas associated with mathematical, visual and spatial cognition.Although he published 300 scientific papers, Einstein couldn't easily describe the way his mind worked. 'A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way,' he once said. His thoughts moved 'in a wildly speculative way.' As a theorist, he sometimes solved physics problems by imagining himself riding alongside a light beam or falling in an elevator. 'I rarely think in words at all. A thought comes and I may try to express it in words afterwards ...I have no doubt that our thinking goes on for the most part without the use of signs and, furthermore, largely unconsciously.'Told that many people only think in words, he laughed.By studying Einstein's neural remains, researchers like Dr. Falk pursue an inquiry at the confluence of science, folklore and medical history. For a century, scientists have compared famous brains in hopes of finding the link between neural structure and talent. It's heady work. 'The brain is as close as we can get to the physical essence of what makes us human,' she says.To this end, Soviet scientists once conducted top-secret studies of Lenin's brain, seeking in its dead cells the intellectual seeds of social revolution, says University of Houston political economist Paul Gregory, who discovered the 1936 medical report hidden in Communist Party archives. More recently, researchers at the Institute of Medicine in Juelich, Germany, took apart the brain of a translator fluent in 60 languages, in hopes of finding the secret of his exceptional language ability. In both cases, the findings were inconclusive.By itself, brain size is no true measure of intellect, comparative studies confirm. Einstein's brain weighed 2.7 pounds, less than most men. The brain of 1921 Nobel laureate Anatole France weighed just 2.1 pounds. At three pounds, Lenin's brain was exactly average. The brain of Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev outweighed them all at 4.4 pounds.To understand the anatomical reasons our mental capacities often differ, researchers must look instead for subtle distinctions among neurons and synapses in structures associated with specific abilities. Nonetheless, the effort to study Einstein's brain was controversial from the start.When Einstein died in New Jersey at the age of 76, an eccentric hospital pathologist named Thomas Harvey conducted a routine autopsy. But he removed the physicist's brain for later study -- apparently acting on his own authority. He soaked it in preservative and cut it into 240 pieces, each containing about two teaspoons of cerebral tissue. He mounted 1,000 slivers on microscope slides for study.It was decades, though, before Dr. Harvey could persuade anyone to seriously examine them. Einstein's brain samples languished in a cider box next to the beer cooler under his desk.Not until 1985 did the first scientific analysis appear. Pioneering neuroscientist Marion Diamond at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered that, in some tissue samples, Einstein's brain had more cells nurturing each neuron than normal. These well-tended cells, located in a region associated with mathematical and language skills, might help explain the physicist's 'unusual conceptual powers,' she speculates.Then Dr. Harvey contacted neuropsychologist Sandra Witelson at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. An authority on cognition and comparative neuroanatomy, Dr. Witelson had assembled the world's largest collection of normal brains, all cross-matched and cataloged by intelligence tests and behavioral surveys conducted while the donors were still alive.'Unannounced, he sent me packages -- packets of slides -- just addressed to me without a return address,' Dr. Witelson recalls. 'These slides of Einstein's brain kept coming through the mail, unannounced and uninsured.'She compared Einstein's brain samples with dozens of normal men and women in her brain bank. Most of his brain was unremarkable, but she found that one area associated with visual and spatial reasoning -- the inferior parietal region -- was 15% larger than normal. Even more unusual, his brain lacked a special fissure there, effectively fusing two key brain regions into one.'I can't prove that those were the regions that Einstein was using when he was thinking about relativity,' says Dr. Witelson. 'We suggested that anatomy could have given him an advantage in three-dimensional thinking.'No one knows whether the quirks of Einstein's brain structure were the cause or effect of his genius. Some of his gift, no doubt, was hereditary. But his research required intense study, and such concentrated effort can alter the brain physically. Regular meditation, for example, can increase the size of brain areas that regulate emotion, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Laboratory of Neuroimaging reported last week in the journal Neuroimage.Indeed, a curious knob-like feature that Dr. Falk saw in pictures of Einstein's motor cortex might be due to his early musical training. It resembled a structure detected in neural studies of experienced pianists and violinists, caused by hand exercises.'I wish Einstein were alive,' says Dr. Falk, 'and we could ask a little more about how he thinks.'Robert Lee Hotz";
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var summary="對愛因斯坦腦部切片的最新研究表明﹐其大腦皮層有十幾個與常人有異的細微之處﹐這些區別也許就是愛因斯坦能以全新視角詮釋物理學的原因所在。";

2009年 05月 26日 08:46
愛因斯坦大腦探密

為探尋天才之所以能成為天才的原因﹐最近一個研究人員通過化石分析技術重建了愛因斯坦(Albert Einstein)的腦部輪廓。她相信﹐該建模將有助於揭開愛因斯坦這個改變我們對時間、空間和能量看法的稀有天才的秘密。

Lancet
圖中箭頭所指為愛因斯坦大腦內部的側腦溝愛因斯坦於1955年逝世後﹐人們對其腦部拍攝了照片。通過對這些照片的研究﹐佛羅里達州立大學(Florida State University)的人類學家迪恩•福爾克(Dean Falk)發現﹐愛因斯坦大腦皮層有十幾個與常人有異的細微之處﹐這些區別也許就是愛因斯坦能以全新視角詮釋物理學的原因所在。福爾克博士的研究成果向我們表明﹐腦部是如何影響這個20世紀最著名智腦的思維活動的。“愛因斯坦的腦部真的不同尋常。”福爾克博士說﹐“至少腦部皮層看上去就與眾不同﹐讓我們產生很多想法。”和每個人一樣﹐愛因斯坦的腦部也是思維活動的中心。愛因斯坦對物理學的那些顛覆性理論﹐都是數十億根神經交互而成的250億個神經元的產物。人類的腦部密度如此之高﹐一團針箍大小的腦組織通常有5000萬個神經元﹐1萬億個突觸。愛因斯坦的思想﹐以200英里的時速在9.3萬英里的閉合神經纖維迷宮中飛馳。沒人能確切說出﹐思想和創意是怎麼從這麼多特殊細胞的運動中萌生出來的。費城德雷塞爾大學 (Drexel University)和伊利諾州美國西北大學(Northwestern University)的研究人員最近發現﹐以腦電圖的測量結果來看﹐創新思想者的腦電波活動方式通常與採用系統方法解決問題的人不同。作為一個研究古人類神經中樞演變過程的專家﹐福爾克博士習慣於研究那些已經不存於世的腦部。通過對25張愛因斯坦腦部解剖照片的研究﹐她發現其腦部頂葉區域的皮層高低起伏與眾不同﹐暗示著愛因斯坦腦部那些與數學、視覺、空間認知有關的皮層經過了重新分佈。雖然愛因斯坦發表了300篇科學論文﹐但他無法簡單描述出自己是如何思考的。“一個新的想法會突然出現﹐不知道從哪兒冒出來。”愛因斯坦有一次這樣說道。他的思想“宛如天馬行空”。作為一個理論家﹐他在思考物理學課題時﹐有時想象自己騎著一道光線飛行﹐或被困在電梯里自由墜落。“我很少通過文字來思考﹐只有當一個想法閃現後﹐我才會嘗試用文字來表達出來……毫無疑問﹐我們的思維大多數時間不以符號為載體﹐而且大多數是下意識的思維。”當有人告訴他許多人通過文字來思考時﹐愛因斯坦笑了。


解密愛因斯坦大腦的非凡之處
世上真有天生非凡的大腦嗎，大腦構造跟聰明才智之間是否有聯系呢？為了探索這個問題的答案，科學家們分析了舉世聞名的傑出物理學家阿爾伯特﹒愛因斯坦(Albert Einstein)的大腦構造。《華爾街日報》科學欄目專欄作家Robert Lee Hotz報道。通過研究愛因斯坦的神經系統資料﹐福爾克博士力圖通過融合科學、民俗學和醫學史來探尋答案。一個世紀以來﹐科學家們比較過不少著名人物的腦部﹐希望找到神經系統結構和天才之間的聯繫。這是一項很令人興奮的工作。“對腦部構造的研究﹐幾乎就是對人類之所以為人類的物理根源的探尋。”福爾克博士說道。休斯頓大學(University of Houston)政治經濟學家保羅•格里高利(Paul Gregory)說﹐出於這一目的﹐蘇聯科學家曾對列寧的腦部從事過絕密研究﹐希望在死去的腦細胞中找到其萌發社會革命思想的智力種籽。他在共產黨文檔庫中發現了這份深藏的1936年醫學報告。最近﹐德國餘力希醫學研究院(Institute of Medicine in Juelich)的研究人員分解了一個能流利掌握60國語言的翻譯的腦部﹐希望找到其超強語言能力的秘密。然而﹐上述兩項研究都沒有結論性的發現。對腦部進行比較研究後的結論證實﹐腦部大小並非衡量智商的正確尺度。愛因斯坦的大腦重2.7磅﹐比大多數男性的都要輕。1921年諾貝爾獎獲得者阿納托爾•法朗士(Anatole France)的大腦只有2.1磅﹐而列寧重3磅的大腦只是達到平均水準而已。俄羅斯文學家伊萬•屠格涅夫(Ivan Turgenev)的腦部在這幾個人當中首屈一指﹐重4.4磅。為了從解剖學角度理解為什麼我們的思考能力往往各不相同﹐研究人員必須探尋人們腦部那些與特定能力相關的神經元和突觸存在什麼細微區別。然而﹐對愛因斯坦的腦部研究從一開始就備受爭議。愛因斯坦76歲時在美國新澤西州逝世﹐醫院裏一個古怪的病理學家托馬斯•哈維(Thomas Harvey)做了例行的屍體解剖﹐但把愛因斯坦的腦部移走作為日後研究之用－－顯然這是他自作主張的行為。他把腦部浸入防腐液﹐切成240塊﹐每塊約有兩茶匙的腦組織。他在承物玻璃片上製成1,000份切片樣本﹐以備在顯微鏡下觀察。但幾十年過去了﹐哈維醫生一直無法說服別人認真研究這些東西。愛因斯坦的腦部切片長年塵封在哈維醫生辦公桌底下小冰箱旁邊的一個蘋果酒盒子裡。直到1985年﹐對愛因斯坦腦部的第一次科學分析才正式開始。具有開拓精神的神經學家、加州大學伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)的馬里恩•戴蒙德(Marion Diamond)發現﹐在一些腦組織樣本中﹐愛因斯坦的大腦有更多細胞向每個神經元提供養份。那些提供養份的腦細胞位於管理數學和語言機能的區域﹐福爾克博士猜測說﹐這也許有助於解釋為什麼愛因斯坦具有“非同尋常的抽象思維能力”。隨後﹐哈維醫生聯繫神經心理學家、加拿大安大略省哈密爾頓市麥克馬斯特大學(McMaster University)的桑德拉•維特森(Sandra Witelson)。作為認知學和神經解剖比較學的權威﹐維特森博士收集的普通大腦數量位居世界前列﹐並在捐獻者生前對其進行智力測試和行為調查﹐並依此對這些大腦做出細緻比較和分類。“哈維醫生事先沒有和我聯繫﹐就發來一個包裹－－裡面是腦部切片﹐郵件上只寫了我的地址﹐而沒留下回信方式。”維特森博士回憶道﹐“這些愛因斯坦的腦部切片不斷通過郵件發過來﹐從不寫明包裹內容﹐也從不保價。”她將愛因斯坦的腦部切片與其收集的普通男女的腦部做比較﹐愛因斯坦大腦的絕大部分都很普通﹐但她發現一塊與視覺和空間推理相關的區域－－頂下小葉－－比一般人大15%。更不尋常的是﹐愛因斯坦的頂下小葉缺少一條特殊的裂縫﹐導致兩塊關鍵的腦部區域成為一個整體。“我無法證明那裡就是愛因斯坦在思考相對論時所使用的腦部區域。”維特森博士說﹐“我們猜測﹐這種生理異常可能讓他在進行三維思考時擁有優勢。”沒人知道愛因斯坦奇特的腦部構造是否就是他成為天才的原因或結果。毫無疑問﹐他的一些才華來自遺傳基因﹔但他從事的課題需要大量的研究思考﹐這種思維活動也可能會改變其腦部構造。舉例而言﹐2009年5月中旬﹐加州大學洛杉磯分校(University of California, Los Angeles)神經影像實驗室(Laboratory of Neuroimaging)在《神經影像》(Neuroimage)雜誌上公佈一項研究報告﹐經常冥想會擴大腦部控制情緒的區域。事實上﹐福爾克博士在愛因斯坦大腦的運動皮質照片上看到的類似球形突起狀的構造可能是受益於他年輕時的肌肉鍛煉﹐在專業鋼琴師和小提琴手的神經中樞上也發現過類似的結構﹐那是長時間的手部鍛煉引起的。“我真希望愛因斯坦還活著﹐”福爾克博士說﹐“這樣我們可以多問一點關於他怎麼思考的問題。”Robert Lee Hotz