It is believed that Albert Einstein, who proposed the theory of relativity, had a slightly different shaped brain that made him the world’s greatest genius. But is it true?
To help solve this mystery, neuroscientists, researchers, educators and the general public now have access to Albert Einstein’s brain via a new iPad app, NMHMC Harvey, launched by The National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago.
This interactive app will allow its users to examine the Nobel Prize-winning physicist’s neuroanatomy as if they were sitting in front of a microscope.
Dr. Thomas Harvey was the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein at Princeton Hospital on April 18, 1955. He removed the brain for study, segmented the brain into approximately 170 parts, roughly grouped by the various lobes and brainstem, and then sectioned those parts into hundreds of microscope sections.
He then mounted those sections on microscope slides and stained to highlight both cellular structure and nerve conductive tissues. Harvey’s estate donated the collection to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in 2010. In the spring of 2012, the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Chicago, obtained private funding support to begin digitising this collection. This app makes available to the public the portion of the collection that has been digitized to-date. Subsequent releases of this app will come with additional materials that will be digitised.
We hope through this app now one might be able to understand what was cooking inside Eintein’s brain but for that one has to shell out $9.99.