TNI Bureau: Now one can see the original image of the great scientist Albert Einstein’s brain on the iPad. It can be downloaded as an application NMHMC Harvey for $9.99. The app contains 350 slides of Einstein’s brain, which has been taken during his autopsy in 1955.
The slides present the microscopic digitized view of the Nobel winner scientist’s brain.
Soon after Einstein’s death in 1955, a Princeton Hospital pathologist named Thomas Harvey performed an autopsy, removing the great scientist’s brain in hopes that future researchers could discover the secrets behind his genius. Then, it was a common practice for doctors to take specimens from autopsies for research purposes.
Dr. Harvey died in 2007 and the slides were donated to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Chicago, which digitized the slides for the app.
Earlier in 1999, Harvey gave samples of the slide to researchers for study to be published in the Lancet. The study had revealed an uncommon observation in the brain of the great scientist. The study found that the parietal lobe, a region of Einstein’s brain was 15 percent wider than normal. The parietal lobe is important to the understanding of math.
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The new iPad app may allow researchers to dig even deeper by looking for brain regions where the neurons are more densely connected than normal, said Dr. Phillip Epstein, a Chicago-area neuroscientist and consultant for the museum.
Of course neuroscientists who want to dig more in this context may not have enough scope as the slides do not have MRI or any three-dimensional model of the brain of Einstein – Jacopo Annese, a researcher of the Brain Observatory at the University of California, San Diego suspected.
But still it’s exciting that the Einstein brain tissue has been preserved digitally before the slides deteriorate or become damaged.
Now, question is that, had Einstein given permission to sell images of his brain?
Answering to this query, museum board member Jim Paglia reportedly said that “There’s been a lot of debate over what Einstein’s intentions were…We know he didn’t want a circus made of his remains. But he understood the value to research and science to study his brain and we think we’ve addressed that in a respectful manner.”
As this is about the great scientist Albert Einstein, the app is expected to spark interest in the field of brain research and inspire a whole new generation of neuroscientists.