i saw the photos. i've not done an analysis, and will only offer the following
comments as food for thought.
that folks attribute augmented functionality due to the absence of a sulcus is
a tad questionable because the sulci are features of brains because folding the
cortex in upon itself increases cortical surface area... presumably, the more
cortex there is within a particular brain, the more problem-solving capacity
there is... a missing sulcus definitely decreases surface area (however, this
line of thought doesn't translate well across different brains because there
can be compensating neuroanatomy, and everything in a particular brain must be
taken into account before one can strongly assert anything).
It's hard to confirm assertions such as this current one re. Einstein's brain
without knowing a lot about the internal sturcture of the particular brain...
the topology of its internal interconnectedness... without such detailed
knowledge with respect to particular brains, all that can be said strongly
derives in a virtual brain that is a statistical average of all the brains that
neuroanatomists have ever examined.
also, with respect to the recently published photos of Einstein's brain, the
"missing sulcus" is not even the most interesting feature... i found the
highly-"regimented" superficial Geometry of the frontal sulcus to be more
interesting... but i can't say anything more about it without having studied
the underlying internal structure.
you know, the discussion of "intulectual capacities" that's preceded kind of
misses the point. =every= human brain is capable of producing wonders. my view
is that most folks just channel their innate brilliance into
statistically-average endeavor, and its brilliance gets "masked" within the
commonplace familiarity... it's still awesomely brilliant, but the awesome
brilliance is commonplace, so nobody makes a commensurate "fuss" with respect
to it.
the thing that folks who achieve "abnormally" have in common is that they all
step out of the realm of what's familiar... this's a big "of course", of
course, because, if they didn't, their work, when accomplished, would
constitute just more of the same ol' stuff... it's have a familiar "ring" to
it, and folks'd tend to respond without fanfare.
but what induces folks to relinquish liveing within the realm of what's
familiar? it's likely to be seemingly insignificant experiential stuff...
Newton, for instance, removed himself into relative solitude to avoid the
plague... the _Principia_ followed on the heels of that.
what i'm getting at is that there's much more potential, commonly occurring,
within brains than folks recognize... it's just that most folks devote their
innate brilliance to the massed competition to be "normal".
it's a sorrow that there's been such prejudice against "taking the road less
traveled"... against "looking elsewhere"... because, in just doing so, brains
rally to the demands found in the "unknown", replete with robust flowing of
graceful biochemicals within the mechanisms of biological reward.
cheers, ken collins
