Want A Closer Look At Einstein's Brain? There's an App for That

If you have an iPad, you can take a closer look at one of history’s greatest minds. This morning, the National Museum of Health & Medicine, Chicago released an app that displays slides of Albert Einstein’s brain. The app is for sale to researchers and curious iPad users alike, and all profits are going to the Chicago museum that released the app and the Department of Defense’s National Museum of Health and Medicine.

If you’re a fan of Albert Einstein, you may already know that parts of Einstein’s brain were removed and preserved during an autopsy at Princeton Hospital. Researchers studied his brain, determining that a particular portion (which is associated with math and spatial relations) was significantly larger than average. The portions of the brain that were preserved were put on slides – and it’s those slides that are available in the app.

So why are researchers looking at slides instead of a 3D image? There isn’t one. MRIs and related imaging methods weren’t available at the time. This presents a problem for researchers when trying to figure out the precise location of Einstein’s brain that slides came from: without a 3D map, the slides can’t be pinpointed exactly. On the upside, the general areas of the brain that each slide was pulled from is known. If you’d like to check out the app for yourself, it’ll set you back $9.99.