Monday, April 19, 2021

Brilliant intelligence of Sir, Albert Einstein and quickness of wit of Mr Sherlock Holmes

  I was always mesmerized by Sir, Albert Einstein, and his extraordinary intelligence being always fascinated by the genius of his mind which remained a mystery. 


I always kept a picture of the revered man pasted on the wall of my study table. In the house I grew up.





I hoped if only I could have a magnificent brain like him. But I ended up with one scattered throughout with tumours.



I fancied his intelligence but not being stupid, dull or clumsy I ended up with an average intelligence to help adaptability with a rare disease and the conditions of life which brought me from riches to rags.

But I survived a hellish trek for which there was no map or previously beaten path. I was lucky to be surrounded by supportive, loving and optimistic Mum. In the vacuum of non awareness where people are too complicated to be figured out objectively, plus they are known to change their mind! I moved on with complete sang froid.


I investigated several articles on what made Albert Einstein such a genius.


Einstein’s brain had an extraordinary prefrontal cortex and that inferior portions of the primary somatosensory and motor cortices were greatly expanded in the left hemisphere. 


The corpus callosum is the largest nerve fibre bundle that connects the cortical regions of the cerebral hemispheres in human brains and it plays an essential role in the integration of information transferred between the hemispheres over thousands of axons.



It is a large C shape of white matter that divides the cerebral cortex into the right and left hemispheres.




 

Einstein’s corpus callosum circularity is significantly larger.

In most of the genu, midbody, isthmus, and part of the splenium, Einstein’s corpus callosum is thicker than normal but thinner in the most rostral body.


Einstein’s brain weight was very similar to the mean brain weight of the elderly control group. Einstein’s brain was normal for his age


Einstein’s corpus callosum in the genu(knee-like anterior curvature of the corpus callosum of the brain, ending in the rostrum or beak of that organ: as, the genu of the optic tract)is wider.



The corpus callosum (The anterior one-fourth of the callosum is considered the genu. The rostral body begins directly behind the genu, extending back to include the anterior one-third of the callosum. The center one-third of the callosum is split into two equal sections, the anterior and posterior midbody. The isthmus extends from the posterior one-third to the posterior one-fifth of the callosum. Finally, the most posterior one-fifth is considered the selenium)is the largest bundle of white matter neural fibres in the brain that connects the interhemispheric cortices, and it may be involved in any neuroanatomical substrate of hemi­sphere specialization.


The fibres that pass through the callosal ros­trum and genu appear to connect the interhemispheric regions of orbital gyri (The orbital gyri are located on the inferior surface of the frontal lobe. There are four gyri and they are divided by the H-shaped orbital sulci. They have a role in the perception of odors) and prefrontal cortices corresponding with the left and right Brodmann areas 11/10(Brodmann’s areas are typically shown on a map of the brain surface, but each region is continued through the depth of cerebral cortex), which are involved in planning, rea­soning, decision-making, memory retrieval, and executive function.

 



  • Brodmann areas 1, 2 & 3: primary somatosensory cortex (postcentral gyrus)
  • Brodmann area 4: primary motor cortex (precentral gyrus)
  • Brodmann area 5: somatosensory association cortex (superior parietal lobule)
  • Brodmann area 6: premotor cortex and supplementary motor cortex 
  • Brodmann area 7: visuo-motor coordination (superior parietal lobule)
  • Brodmann area 8: frontal eye fields
  • Brodmann area 9: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
  • Brodmann area 10: anterior prefrontal cortex
  • Brodmann area 11 & 12: orbitofrontal area (orbital gyri, gyrus rectus, rostral gyrus and part of superior frontal gyrus)
  • Brodmann area 13 & 16: insular cortex
  • Brodmann area 17: primary visual cortex (V1)
  • Brodmann area 18: secondary visual cortex (V2)
  • Brodmann area 19: associative visual cortex (V3, V4 & V5)
  • Brodmann area 20: inferior temporal gyrus
  • Brodmann area 21: middle temporal gyrus
  • Brodmann area 22: superior temporal gyrus (including Wernicke area)
  • Brodmann area 23, 24, 28 to 33: cingulate cortex
  • Brodmann area 25: subgenual area
  • Brodmann area 26: ectosplenial portion of the retrosplenial region of the cerebral cortex
  • Brodmann area 27: piriform cortex
  • Brodmann area 34: dorsal entorhinal cortex
  • Brodmann area 35 & 36: perirhinal cortex & ectorhinal area
  • Brodmann area 37: fusiform gyrus
  • Brodmann area 38: temporal pole
  • Brodmann area 39: angular gyrus
  • Brodmann area 40: supramarginal gyrus
  • Brodmann area 41 & 42: primary auditory cortex (Heschl gyrus)
  • Brodmann area 43: primary gustatory cortex
  • Brodmann area 44: part of Broca area (pars opercularis, part of the inferior frontal gyrus)
  • Brodmann area 45: part of Broca area (pars triangularis, part of the inferior frontal gyrus)
  • Brodmann area 46: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
  • Brodmann area 47: pars orbitalis, part of the inferior frontal gyrus
  • Brodmann area 48: retrosubicular area
  • Brodmann area 52: parainsular area


There is a hypothesis consistent with the finding that Einstein had relatively expanded prefrontal cortices. The morphology of both his corpus callosum and prefrontal cortex may have provided the foundation for his exceptional cognitive abilities and remarkable thought experiments.



The neural fibre bundle that passes through the callosal midbody and isthmus mainly connects corresponding interhemispheric pre-motor cortices (Brodmann area 6), primary motor cortices (Brodmann area 4), primary somatosensory cortices (Brodmann areas 1/2/3), secondary somatosensory cortices (Brodmann area 5) and parts of the parietal region. These fibres have the largest and most heavily myelinated axons, which transfer information faster. Einstein had an enlarged omega-shaped fold in his right primary motor cortex, which probably represented the motor cortex for his left hand, an unusual feature that may have been associated with the fact that he was a right-handed violin-player from childhood. 

Fibers of the posterior isthmus and splenium are thought to connect corresponding parts of the superior parietal lobules (Brodmann area 7), inferior parietal lobules (Brodmann areas 39/40), and temporal cortices (Brodmann areas 20/21/37), whereas other fibres of the splenium have been shown to connect extensive cortical regions including the occipital cortex (Brodmann areas 17/18/19).


The superior parietal lobules are involved in visuomotor coordination, spatial attention, and spatial imagery. Recent functional MRI studies indicate that the superior parietal lobule and the intraparietal sulcus (groove)are both activated during mental arithmetic and digit memory tasks. The inferior parietal lobules are concerned with language, mathematical operations (especially on the left), spatial perception, and visuomotor integration. The occipital cortices are in charge of visual processing and can be activated during imagery with eyes closed. The inferior temporal gyri (Brodmann area 20) are involved in high-level visual processing, recognition memory, face and body recognition, and processing of color information. The parietal lobes of Einstein’s brain were 15% wider. Einstein’s right superior parietal lobule (Brodmann area 7) was considerably wider than the left, his right intraparietal sulcus was highly unusual, his left inferior parietal lobule appeared to be relatively expanded compared to the right, and the cortical surfaces of Einstein’s occipital lobes were very con­voluted. The ratio of glial to neuronal cells was significantly greater in Einstein’s left compared to right Brodmann area 39 and relatively increased in the bilateral temporal neocortices. The glia affects neuronal excitability, synaptic transmission and coord­inate activity across networks of neurons.


It was observed significant positive correlations between posterior callosal thickness and intelligence measures. Einstein’s extraordinary spatial imagery and mathematical gifts were grounded on definable neurological substrates. Although the intelligence of human beings cannot be fully explained by regional cortical volumes, Einstein’s extraordinary cognition was related not only to his unique cortical structure and cytoarchitectonics, but also involved enhanced communication routes between at least some parts of his two cerebral hemispheres.


Thus Einstein’s cerebral hemi­spheres by comparing the morphology of his corpus callosum with that of 15 elderly healthy males and 52 young healthy males. We found that Einstein’s corpus callosum was thicker in the vast majority of subregions and that Einstein’s corpus callosum was thicker in the rostrum, genu, midbody, isthmus, and (especially) the splenium. These findings show that the connectivity between the two hemispheres was generally enhanced in Einstein compared with control The results of our study suggest that Einstein’s intellectual gifts were not only related to specializations of cortical folding and cytoarchitecture in certain brain regions but also involved coordi­nated communication between the cerebral hemispheres. Last but not the least, the improved approach for corpus callosum measurement used in this study may have more general applica­tions in corpus callosum studies.


~ From Brain a Journal of Neurology

The corpus callosum of Albert Einstein‘s brain: another clue to his high intelligence?


To explain the relationship between intelligence and the internal and external world of the individual; the analytical, creative, and practical comprise each sub-theory category respectively.



Understanding the nature of the components of intelligence is not alone sufficient to understand the nature of intelligence because there is more to intelligence than a set of information processing components. Sternberg held that we could scarcely understand what makes one person more intelligent than another, by only understanding the components of processing based on an intelligence test.  


For example, someone may be book smart but lack creativity and street smarts. 


Another person may be creative, but lack analytical and practical skills; another may be quite practical but lack the creative and analytical abilities others have.


By incorporating analytical, critical, and practical intelligence you can achieve successful intelligence.


Most intelligent people fail due to: a lack of motivation, a lack of impulse control, a lack of perseverance, a fear of failure, procrastination, the inability to delay gratification, and due to having too little or too much self-confidence.  

By incorporating analytical, critical, and practical intelligence you can achieve successful intelligence.

It’s little known that Einstein was an accomplished violinist, and even less known that had he not pursued science, he said he would have been a musician:


"I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music." said Einstein.



Music can be thought of as a complex stimulus able to enrich the encoding of an event thus boosting its subsequent retrieval. However, several findings suggest that music can also interfere with memory performance. A better understanding of the behavioral and neural processes involved can substantially improve knowledge and shed new light on the most efficient music-based interventions.


Dr. Watson wrote in The Red Headed League: "Holmes was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer of no ordinary merit." The detective enjoyed music of all kinds, including opera, concert music, and obscure compositions. His special devotion to music was clear from the number of references in the stories.


Watson mentions Holmes’ violin playing several times.





Music enhances our prefrontal cortex.Mind, was thought of as the complex of faculties involved in perceiving, remembering, considering evaluating, and deciding. The mind is in some sense reflected in such occurrences as sensations, perceptions, emotions, memory, desires, various types of reasoning, motives, choices, traits of personality, and the unconscious. 



Years ago there was little knowledge of the functions of


the subregions of the human prefrontal cortex. 


Most intelligent people fail due to: a lack of motivation, a lack of impulse control, a lack of perseverance, a fear of failure, procrastination, the inability to delay gratification, and due to having too little or too much self-confidence.


Being a bibliophile, loving knowledge, and having a chronic disease abliophobia I believe in esteemed Mr.Sherlock Holmes' words,





“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like an empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time for every addition of knowledge you forget something you knew before. It is of highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”



My mental states and processes are supposedly made up of a different sort of stuff and take place in a different sort of realm. I disregard the view of this prevalent tendency to equate mind with brain, and the accompanying assumptions about the spatial boundaries of the human cognitive realm. My brain is naturally adaptive and the natural plasticity and unique brain's circuitry, partially busted makes it plastic par excellence and makes me endure anything and not be a victim but a Warrior 👸 Princess.




I am very stimulated. My mind never stops.


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