How I almost ate Einsten's brain

The Einstein quote from my post yesterday reminded of a neat story:

After finally graduating from college in 1996, I began to question my lifelong dream of becoming a physician. Rather than plunge ahead unwittingly, I decided to spend some time contemplating my future. If I was going to achieve this goal, I wanted to be 100% devoted to the endeavor. As chance would have it, I happened upon the perfect job opportunity as a Laboratory Research Tech at the VA Medical Center in Birmingham, AL. My mentor was the chief neurologist at that facility, a brilliant academician engaged in several fascinating research projects. As it were, the two projects that I participated in allowed me to perform bench research in the laboratory, as well as interact with patients in a clinical setting. In this environment, the clinical experience would allow me to gage my readiness for entering a career in medicine. Concurrently, this job provided the opportunity to practice my second love, and the career I would most likely have chosen if I had decided to abandon medicine--scientific research.

Although this is not the point of my story, I will briefly mention the nature of the job since it turned out to be quite enthralling.

In the laboratory, our research focused on an area of the human brain involved in rapid language processing, the planum temporale. This is a small area in each temporal lobe that is specialized to process and distinguish variations in speech sounds when someone is talking rapidly. Since the left hemisphere is typically used to process speech (in a majority of individuals), it makes sense that the left planum temporale is asymmetrically larger than the right. However, no one had ever determined what underlying anatomical architecture was responsible for this asymmetry.

My task was to employ a number of techniques to visualize the underlying structure of this area in the brain to ascertain exactly why it was usually bigger on the left. Sounds fanciful, eh? So in order to isolate the specific tissue to examine at the microscopic level, I created ultra thin slices of the temporal lobes of 30 postmortem human brains with the most exquisitely elaborate of scientific apparati, a good ole-fashioned meat slicer. So for days on end, I put on my apron and prepared the finest USDA choice grades of steak du jour with the brains of someone's grandmother or grandfather.

[Reminds me of a previous lab job during college, where my task involved drilling through the 10th thoracic vertebrae of rats with a Black & Decker power drill and dropping a weight directly on the spinal cord to induce paraplegia. Since this act rendered the rat incapable of emptying it's bladder, twice a day I would have to pick up each animal (40 of them!) and gently massage their protuding bellies until the geyser burst forth. Or when we spent hours huddled around our cadaver in gross anatomy, giggling like adolescent school girls, working to delicately remove our subject's surgically implanted penis pump. Science is incredibly romantic, isn't it?]

So...three monotonous years of slicing, staining, cytochemical manipulation, and counting resulted in the discovery that this area of the brain is bigger because the myelin sheaths surrounding the nerves are thicker. To use a simple analogy: if you wanted a cord to conduct electricity faster, an easy way to accomplish this would be to increase the thickness of the insulation surrounding the cord. Since this part of the brain is concerned with analyzing rapid signals, it utilizes a rapid conduction system. Three years to solve a mystery that a junior high physics student could have postulated over a lunch of sloppy joe's and navy beans! The scientific method is funny like that. Yet since it was a novel discovery, I was awarded my first and (thus far) only publication in a major peer-reviewed scientific journal. "Anatomic Asymmetries of the Posterior Superior Temporal Lobes: A Post-Mortem Study" is a must-read for children of all ages! I'm still waiting for the Pulitzer folks to call...

The clinical component of my research involved a phenomenon called "hemispatial neglect", which is a disorder experienced by some stroke patients where they are unable to comprehend anything in a neatly defined area of "hemispace." Much deeper than the inability to see anything in (most frequently) the entire LEFT field of view, these patients completely lack the ability to perceive that the left side of ANYTHING actually exists! We conducted a number of experiments in an attempt to ascertain the nature of this affliction, and even tried a fascinating technique called caloric stimulation to direct the patient's attention to this neglected area of space. Essentially, we squirted either hot or cold water into the ear of the affected side, and measured their response. Other than producing a rapid flurry of colorful vulgarities in response to having water squirted forcefully into their ears, the effect of resolving the neglect was only minimal and temporary. Nevertheless, this experience did reinforce and rekindle my love of interacting with patients, and provided the impetus I needed to proceed with my medical career. This time spent in the VA Medical Center also sparked a deep affection and devotion for afflicted veterans, which has motivated my career choices up to this point in time.

Somehow I have once again taken an incredibly tortuous path to the point of (what was intended to be) a simple story about my relationship with Albert Einstein. Focus...focus...

Soon after beginning my work in this lab I discovered that my mentor had already completed his most compelling research project. In a fascinating story that appears to be accurately described by a website I just found called 'Neuroscience for Kids' (see their website here: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ein.html ), Dr. Anderson discovered that Einstein's brain had been stolen by his best friend shortly after his death (what a pal!), and still retained portions of it in Mason jars in his cupboard! A few days after speaking with the friend (Dr. Thomas Harvey) and expressing interest in researching what made the great scientist tick, Dr. Anderson received a neatly packaged Mason Jar via the United States Postal Service containing portions of Einstein's brain!!! One can only surmise whether or not he answered truthfully the postmaster's inquisition as to whether the package he was mailing contained any liquid or perishable contents! (To validate the truthfulness of my tale, please scroll down to the bottom of the aforelinked website and note where the brain ended up).

Soon after arriving in the laboratory, I was introduced to Mr. Einstein's brain. A small, yellow-lidded, glass jar of formalin contained 4-5 smoothly sliced sections (about the size of wedges from an apple) of the cortex (and a large chunk of cerebellum) that was responsible for revolutionizing the way we perceive the universe. I handled the container with reverential care, mesmerized, in awe. After receiving permission, I carefully extracted a portion of brain and laid it gently on a paper towel. Timidly running my finger across the glistening, smooth surface I pondered the extraordinary opportunity I had been afforded. I was touching, most likely, the greatest human 'mind' that had ever existed! Suddenly my obsequious veneration was paroxysmally replaced with a vulgar compulsion...

I wanted to eat Einstein's brain!

What was I thinking?! What purpose would be served by such a dastardly act? Perhaps I intuitively recalled the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and hoped that by ingesting this tissue that I would be transformed into an intellectual behemoth, able to solve gravitational constants in a single chalk stroke? Maybe on a much simpler level, I wanted to provide the story of all stories, one that would garner respect and adoration for generations of my grandchildren's grandchildren from their elementary school peers? Or was I simply overtaken by yet another irrational desire to perform the inconceivable in my neverending quest for attention? You know, like... "Honey, you'll never guess what I did at work today?" Haven't we all coveted the distinction of being the only person in the course of human history to have performed a particular deed? To stand in defiance of the author of Ecclestiastes and proclaim, "Yes, in fact, there IS something new under the sun!"

Granted, this might not be such a strange exploit coming from someone who has the dubious honor of being the only person I know who has actually gargled with his own grandmother's urine. How was I to know she was collecting a 24-hour urine specimen? I thought it was mouthwash. Honest!

Who knows why, but it was one helluva bizarre thought. Wouldn't you say? Sometimes I still dream about how it might have tasted.

Now I'm hungry... I'm off to McDonald's to get a biscuit n' gravy...