The renowned 19th century forensic scientist Cesare Lombroso argued that genius is an abnormal activity of the brain, bordering on epileptoid psychosis. “Genius is a breakdown of the brain,” a hundred years later, the director of the Institute of the Human Brain, Svyatoslav Medvedev, supported him.
Fools, smart people, geniuses
It is well known that, depending on the mental abilities, humanity is divided into ordinary, smart and stupid people and also geniuses. For a long time, scientists assumed that everything depends on some anatomical features of the thinking apparatus, and they tried hard to find them. In the first three groups, it was not possible to identify any differences, they decided to take up geniuses.
Recognized scientific authorities began to measure the brain volume of great people, weigh it, and count the number of convolutions. The results were the most contradictory: some of the genius personalities had a very large brain, some had a very small one. The largest brain (of the studied) was possessed by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev: his weight is 2012 grams, which is almost 600 grams more than the average. But the brain of Anatole France is almost a kilogram lighter than Turgenev's. But who would undertake to assert that Turgenev wrote twice as good as France!
In women, the brain turned out to be, on average, 100 grams lighter than that of a man, although among them there were persons who were not only not inferior, but also much superior to men in intelligence. And interestingly, the largest brain - 2222 grams - was possessed by a person who was unanimously considered a fool by those around him.
This refuted the hypothesis that mental abilities are directly dependent on the size of the brain. But its authors proceeded from the seemingly logically obvious: the larger the brain, the more nerve cells it contains that can perform more complex tasks. But it was not taken into account that nerve cells work in cellular ensembles with a certain hierarchical structure.
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Then, to assess genius, another parameter was proposed - the number of grooves and convolutions on the surface of the cerebral cortex. But even here the scientists were disappointed: the cerebral cortex of geniuses turned out to be no more prominent, and there were no more convolutions on it than ordinary people.
Pantheon of Brains
At the end of the 1920s, the government set before Soviet scientists the "task of the century": to figure out how to ensure that "any cook could run the state." In other words, is it possible to raise people with exceptional mental abilities.
To carry out relevant research, the famous neurologist, psychiatrist and psychologist Academician Bekhterev proposed to create in Leningrad the so-called "Pantheon of the Brain", where flasks with the national heritage of the brains of famous Soviet people would be kept. He even wrote a draft decree, according to which the brains of the "greats" after their death had to be transferred to the "Pantheon" without fail.
The scientist himself died suddenly in 1927 under mysterious circumstances, but his idea survived. At the initiative of the People's Commissar of Health Semashko, in Moscow, where a laboratory for the study of Lenin's brain had already existed since 1924, an institute was opened, where the brains of the leaders of the party and government, scientists, literature and art were transferred. In 1934, for example, it was reported that the research team of the institute was studying the brains of Clara Zetkin, A. V. Lunacharsky, academician M. N. Pokrovsky, V. V. Mayakovsky, Andrey Bely, academician V. S. Gulevich. Then the meeting was replenished with the brains of K. S. Stanislavsky and singer Leonid Sobinov, Maxim Gorky and poet Eduard Bagritsky and others.
Before getting on the table to a scientist for detailed study, the brain was subjected to preparatory research. It lasted for about a year. At first, the brain was divided using a macrotome - a machine resembling a guillotine - into parts that were "compacted" in formalin and embedded in paraffin, forming blocks. Then, using the same macrotome, they were divided into a huge number - up to 15 thousand - sections 20 microns thick.
However, many years of anatomical studies have not revealed the secret of genius. True, the reports recorded that all outstanding brains taken together "lost" to the main exhibit of the pantheon - the brain of Vladimir Ilyich. But this was no longer science, but ideology.
The brain of the leader of the revolution was removed immediately after his death in 1924. For more than ten years, he was carefully studied under a microscope by the German professor Oskar Vogt, who was tasked with proving that Lenin was not just a genius, but a superman.
By weight, the "gray matter" of the leader was nothing special, so Vogt focused on his structure. At the first stage, he declared that the "material base" of Ilyich's brain was "much richer than usual." And then he made a report in which he stated: “The brain of Vladimir Ilyich is distinguished by the presence of very large and numerous pyramidal cells, the layer of which consists of the cerebral cortex - the“gray matter”- just as the body of an athlete is distinguished by highly developed muscles … Anatomy of Lenin's brain is such that he can be called an "associative athlete."
But Vogt's colleague Walter Spielmeier criticized the report, stating that large pyramidal cells were also found in the brains of feeble-minded people. Since 1932, the question of the secret of the leader's genius has ceased to be publicly discussed.
Long-term painstaking research by the staff of the Institute of the Brain did not give the desired results, rather, they even moved away from solving the mystery.
Ingenious slow-witted
It has been established that the average person "exploits" only one tenth of his brain. It is logical to assume that the “supreme commander” of geniuses works to the fullest. It turned out not! Not only are their convolutions even less involved, but they also have lower, primitive and evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain, which ordinary citizens sleep peacefully.
This unexpected conclusion was reached by neurophysiologists John Mitchell and Allan Snyder from the Center for the Study of the Brain at the Australian National University in Canberra. For several years, they studied people with phenomenal abilities using a positron and nuclear resonance imaging machine, which allows them to see which parts of the brain are working when processing information from the senses.
It turned out that between the moment when the image focused by the lens falls on the retina of the eye, and the conscious perception of what was seen, only about a quarter of a second passes. During this time, an ordinary person automatically comprehends information. But, processing it, he crosses out most of the information received, leaving a general impression of what he saw. Genius, on the other hand, perceives everything in fantastic detail. It is the same with hearing: an ordinary person evaluates the melody as a whole, and a genius hears individual sounds. It turns out that the secret of genius lies in the “wrong” work of the brain - it pays the main attention to details. Which allows him to draw brilliant conclusions.
American colleagues of Australian neurophysiologists, who for several years studied the functioning of the brain of people with a very high level of intelligence, characteristic of geniuses, found that such individuals think slower than ordinary people and therefore are more likely to come to a truly brilliant decision. This is due to the fact that in the area of the brain that is responsible for the perception of visual and sensory information, they have an increased concentration of NAA molecules. It is these molecules that are essential for the formation of extraordinary intelligence and extraordinary creative thinking.
However, to the surprise of experts, the movement of NAA in the brains of individuals with very high IQs (i.e. geniuses) is slower than in their less intelligent counterparts. In particular, according to the researchers, Albert Einstein was distinguished by the habit of thinking over any question for a long time and invariably found an ingenious solution. He had such a feature since childhood, he was even called a slow-witted.
This is how Americans describe the brain of geniuses. NAA molecules are found in the tissues of the gray matter, which is composed of neurons. The connection between them is carried out through axons (processes of the nerve cell that conduct nerve impulses from the cell body to the innervated organs or other nerve cells), which are part of the white matter. At the same time, in average people, axons are covered with a thick fatty membrane, which allows nerve impulses to move faster. In geniuses, this fatty membrane is extremely thin, due to which the advancement of impulses is very slow.
Scientists believe that most geniuses from infancy develop excessively one area of the brain due to the "de-energization" of others. She - the most "capable" - grows, begins to dominate the rest and eventually turns into a strictly specialized. And then a person begins to amaze with either visual memory, or musical abilities, or chess talents. And in ordinary people, all areas of the brain develop evenly.
This is confirmed by the results of a recent study of the brain of Albert Einstein. The areas of the brain that are responsible for mathematical abilities were enlarged. And they did not intersect with a gyrus that limits other zones, as is the case with ordinary people. Therefore, it is likely that Einstein's "mathematical neurons", taking advantage of the absence of boundaries, captured cells from neighboring zones, which, while remaining independent, would perform completely different work.
So, now the nature of genius is known and it is possible to artificially grow geniuses?
“Each of us potentially possesses extraordinary abilities, and they can be awakened in one area, that is, to make a person a genius. In the next ten years, as a result of further research, it will be found out which parts of the brain must be turned on and off in order to make a person, for example, Leonardo da Vinci or Pythagoras, says one of the co-authors of the sensational discovery, Professor Allan Snyder. - But the very nature of man does not allow this, because it does not need "ingenious idiocy" in one very narrow area. The higher parts of the brain realize the complete uselessness of too detailed information and leave it in the subconscious. Genius is a deviation from the norm, and then the brain rises up against idiocy."