The famous 19th-century forensic scientist Cesare Lombroso argued that genius is abnormal brain activity bordering on epileptoid psychosis. " Genius is brain damage”, - a hundred years later, the director of the Institute of the Human Brain, Svyatoslav Medvedev, supported him.
Fools, wise men, geniuses
It is well known that, depending on mental abilities, humanity is divided into ordinary people, smart and stupid, and also geniuses. For a long time, scientists assumed that everything depends on some anatomical features of the mental apparatus, and they tried hard to find them. In the first three groups, it was not possible to identify any differences, they decided to deal with geniuses.
Recognized scientific authorities began to measure the volume of the brain of great people, weigh it, count the number of convolutions. The results were the most contradictory: some of the brilliant personalities had a very large brain, someone had a very small one.
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev possessed the largest brain (of those studied): 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 will undertake to assert that Turgenev wrote twice as well as Frans!
In women, the brain turned out to be on average 100 grams lighter than a man's, although among them there were persons who not only did not concede, but also far exceeded 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.
Thus, the hypothesis that mental abilities directly depend on the size of the brain was refuted. But its authors proceeded from the seemingly logically obvious: the larger the brain, the more nerve cells in it that can perform more complex tasks. But this did not take into account that nerve cells work in cell ensembles with a certain hierarchical structure.
Then, to assess genius, another parameter was proposed - the number of furrows and convolutions on the surface of the cerebral cortex. But even here, scientists were disappointed: the cerebral cortex of geniuses turned out to be no more prominent, and there were no more convolutions on it than in ordinary people.
Einstein's brain: left and right views (photo by Brain (2012) / National Museum of Health and Medicine).
Pantheon of Brains
In the late 20s of the XX century, the government set the "task of the century" for Soviet scientists: to figure out how to ensure that "any cook could run the state." In other words, is it possible to grow people with exceptional mental abilities.
To conduct relevant research, the famous neurologist, psychiatrist and psychologist Academician Bekhterev proposed creating the so-called "Brain Pantheon" in Leningrad, where flasks with a national treasure - the brains of famous Soviet people - would be stored. He even wrote a draft decree, according to which the brains of the "great" after their death should be in without fail transferred to the Pantheon.
The scientist himself died suddenly in 1927 under mysterious circumstances, but his idea survived. At the initiative of People's Commissar of Health Semashko in Moscow, where since 1924 there was already a laboratory for studying the brain of Lenin, an institute was opened where they began to transfer the brains of party and government leaders, scientists, writers and artists.
In 1934, for example, it was reported that the scientific 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 collection 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 the scientist for detailed study, the brain was subjected to a preparatory study.
It went on for about a year. First, the brain was divided using a macrotome - a machine resembling a guillotine - into parts that were "compacted" in formalin and filled with paraffin, forming blocks. Then, using the same macrotome, they were divided into great amount- up to 15 thousand - sections with a thickness of 20 microns.
However, many years of anatomical research did not reveal the secret of genius. True, the reports recorded that all the outstanding brains taken together "lost" the main exhibit of the pantheon - the brain of Vladimir Ilyich. But it 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.
In terms of weight, the "grey 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 -“ gray matter ”, - just as the body of an athlete is distinguished by highly developed muscles ... Anatomy Lenin's brain is such that he can be called an "associative athlete".
But Vogt's colleague Walter Spielmeier criticized the report, saying that large pyramidal cells were also found in the brains of demented people. Since 1932, the question of the secret of the leader's genius has ceased to be publicly discussed.
Painstaking long-term studies of the employees of the Institute of the Brain did not give the desired results, rather, they even moved away from unraveling the mystery.
Genius 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 its fullest. It turned out not! Not only do they have even less convolutions involved, but they also have lower, primitive and evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain that are sleeping peacefully in ordinary citizens.
This unexpected conclusion was reached by neuroscientists 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 have been studying people with phenomenal abilities, using the installation for positron and nuclear resonance imaging, which allows you to see which parts of the brain work when processing information from the senses.
It turned out that only about a quarter of a second passes between the moment when an image focused by the lens falls on the retina of the eye and the conscious perception of what is seen. During this time, an ordinary person automatically comprehends the 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's the same with hearing: an ordinary person appreciates the whole melody, and a genius hears individual sounds. It turns out that the secret of genius lies in the "wrong" work of the brain - he pays the main attention to details. Which allows him to draw brilliant conclusions.
American colleagues of Australian neurophysiologists, who have been studying the functioning of the brain of people with a very high level of intelligence characteristic of geniuses for several years, have found that such individuals think more slowly than ordinary people and therefore are more often able to come to a truly brilliant solution.
This is due to the fact that in the area of the brain, which is responsible for the perception of visual and sensory information, they have an increased concentration of NAA molecules.
It is these molecules that are necessary for the formation of unusual intelligence and extraordinary creative thinking.
However, to the surprise of experts, the movement of NAA in the brains of individuals with very high IQ (that is, geniuses) is slower than in their less intelligent counterparts. In particular, according to the researchers, Albert Einstein had a habit of thinking about any issue for a long time and invariably found an ingenious solution. He had such a feature since childhood, he was even called slow-witted.
Americans describe the work of the brain of geniuses in this way. NAA molecules are found in the tissues of the gray matter, which is made up of neurons. Communication between them is carried out through axons (processes of a nerve cell that conduct nerve impulses from the cell body to 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 sheath, which allows nerve impulses to move faster. In geniuses, this fatty membrane is extremely thin, due to which the movement of impulses is very slow.
Scientists believe that most geniuses develop exorbitantly one area of the brain from infancy at the expense of “power-off” others. She - the most "capable" - increases, begins to dominate the rest and eventually turns into a strictly specialized. And then the person begins to amaze with either visual memory or musical ability, 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 observed in ordinary people.
Therefore, it is likely that Einstein's "mathematical neurons", taking advantage of the absence of boundaries, captured cells from neighboring zones, which, remaining independent, would perform a completely different job.
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 any one area, that is, to make a person a genius. In the next ten years, as a result of further research, it will become clear 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 Professor Allan Snyder, one of the co-authors of the sensational discovery.
- But the very nature of man does not allow this, because she does not need "brilliant 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 here the brain rebels against idiocy.
Sergey Demkin
Who is smarter in the world? This question was answered at the beginning of the 20th century. They answered: the one with the bigger brain. Here is a man - the king of nature, a thinking creature, and all because of all the living creatures on our planet, he has the largest brain (of course, the brain of an elephant is larger, but if measured relative to body size, then a person turns out to be the undoubted leader). This means that an individual endowed with a large brain, in terms of intelligence and ingenuity, will give odds to another Homo sapiens, who has "less brains." In fact, this theory seemed to be confirmed when researchers began taking brain measurements. famous people. It turned out that if the brain of an ordinary adult weighs about 1.4 kg, then the performance of many geniuses is significantly higher than the norm. However, this theory crumbled to dust when it turned out that the largest and heaviest brain (2850 g) belonged to a patient in a psychiatric hospital suffering from idiocy. Conversely, a considerable number of brilliant people in terms of brain weight did not even reach the average figure. So, the brain of Anatole France weighed only 1017 g, and the brain of the great chemist Justus Liebig - less than a kilogram. In addition, science, when people not only lived, but also thought with a severely damaged or almost completely absent brain.It also turned out that the brain varies in weight among representatives of different nations. Until recently, the Buryat was considered the heaviest brain (most recently it was found that the Mongols are the superiority here). Russian brains are in fourth position after Belarusian, German and Ukrainian. Followed by Koreans, Czechs and British; at the end of the list are the Japanese and the French. And the owners of the smallest brain are indigenous Australians: the brain of an average aboriginal weighs about a kilogram. Some scientists believe that the human brain began to form depending on the climate and the complexity of the environment. Difficulties of survival in conditions of sharp climate changes during the year, constant search for livelihood are training for the brain and contribute to its increase in the same way as monotonous physical labor increases muscles. But this is just a theory.
But since it was found that brain size is not directly related to intelligence, research continued. The reasons for the outstanding mental abilities, of course, tried to find out on the basis of studying the brains of deceased geniuses. In the USSR, after the death of Lenin, his brain (despite the protests of relatives) was led by the German neurophysiologist Oskar Vogt. First, in 1925, a laboratory was created to study the brain of Lenin, and 3 years later, on its basis, the Institute of the Brain arose, in which it was decided to collect the most outstanding Soviet "brains". In the 20-30s. The museum exhibits included: the brain of Kalinin, Kirov, Kuibyshev, Krupskaya, Lunacharsky, Gorky, Andrei Bely, Mayakovsky, Michurin, Pavlov, Tsiolkovsky... The collection continued to grow after the war, but not at such a high pace. However, despite the fact that a lot of discoveries were made at this institute, it was not possible to find out what the human intellect still depends on.
There are now a number of theories about this. For some time it was believed that the relative intelligence of a person determines the number of brain cells (neurons), but Russian professor Pyotr Anokhin discovered that it is not the number of neurons that plays a role, but the number of connections between them. The famous Spanish neurophysiologist Santiago Ramon y Cajal also believed that mental abilities depend not so much on the total weight or volume of the brain, but on the number of connections that neurons form with each other. Today, scientists say that in the brain of each of us there are cells responsible for certain abilities, and even entire structures that make one person a talented musician, another a well-aimed shooter, a third a brilliant physicist. Dr. Bruce Miller of the University of California said that he was able to detect in the brain "genius block" - a special area located in the right temporal lobe. Its function is to suppress a person's potential to become a genius. Miller assures that if this zone is completely "turned off", then Creative skills rise to unimaginable heights.
And yet, returning to the question of a large brain. Is there still any advantage in people with a large volume of gray matter? Sergey Savelyev, head of the laboratory for the development of the nervous system at the Research Institute of Human Morphology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that there are more lazy people among people with large brains. “The operation of such a serious mechanism as the brain,” Savelyev explains, “requires a lot of energy expenditure. Judge for yourself. "gray matter" will immediately absorb up to 25% of those entering the body nutrients. The body does not like it, it gets tired quickly, and therefore a person intuitively strives for an easier life. in finding various ways his laziness has no equal. But if the owner of a heavy brain overcomes his laziness, he can move mountains. After all, people with a large brain mass have a greater ability for variability. "By the way, the owners of the largest brain - the Mongols - are considered to be recognized lazy people. Yes, and the Mongols themselves confirm that they are rather lazy, it is no coincidence that they have a habit of postponing all things for tomorrow, although they can be completed today.This even corresponds to the saying: "The Mongolian "tomorrow" will not end."
Experiments with animals have shown that mammals with "heavy" brains are more resistant to stress. It turned out that, for example, mice with large brains are much more phlegmatic than their counterparts deprived of gray matter, and quite easily survive various stressful situations. Moreover, it was found that equal doses of alcohol caused completely different reactions in two experimental groups of rodents: if the "brainy" mice became more active and mobile, then their relatives, deprived of brains, on the contrary, became lazy and sad. Meanwhile, as it turned out, the mass of the brain, even in mice, does not affect intelligence in any way: the mice of both groups with the same speed and result coped (or did not cope) with the logical tasks assigned to them by scientists.
“Let the horse think, it has a bigger head!” - familiar phrase?
And everything seems to be logical - the larger the brain, the smarter its happy owner. Yes, and there are a lot of examples of this: all sorts of insects-cockroaches with a brain of a few milligrams, mice, squirrels and titmouse with a brain weighing only about 1 gram, and then - cats (about 30 gr.), Dogs (about 100 gr.) And anthropoid monkeys with brain weighing about 400 gr. - well, they can’t compete with such clever people like you and me, who have, on average, 1400 grams of gray matter. So far everything seems to be correct.
Well, then complete misunderstandings begin: missing out on all kinds of horses and cows with a brain weight of 300-400 grams, an elephant has a brain weight of more than 5 kg, and sperm whales, in general, more than 7 kg! Wow! So that's who they are - the smartest and wisest! An-no!
It turns out that intelligence just depends not so much on the size and weight of the brain, but on the ratio of its weight to the total weight of the whole body. And here man has no equal!
Well, for example: In humans, the ratio of body weight to brain weight is: .... So…. 70 kg divided by 1.4 kg…so…. Yep, 50 times. But in a cow - 1000 times, in a dog - 500 times, in a chimpanzee - 120 times. Well, if you count whales and sperm whales among the “wise men”, then in general it turns out that the weight of their body exceeds the weight of the brain by as much as 3000 times!
In general, our only and closest “intelligence” relatives are dolphins, the brain weight of some species of which reaches 1700 grams, with a body weight of about 135 kg.
But I wonder if there is a difference in the weight of the brain, so to speak, within the human race? It turns out yes, there is!
We continue.
In general, our brain is a rather energy-intensive and energy-consuming thing. For example, a "resting" brain consumes 9% of the body's energy and 20% of oxygen, and a "working", that is, a thinking brain, consumes about 25% of all nutrients entering the body and about 33% of the oxygen that the body needs so much. In general, it turns out that thinking is not very profitable! And even, the question arises: why do we need such a large and “gluttonous” brain?
It turns out that, in addition to saving energy, one more factor is very important for survival, both in the animal world and in the human world - reaction time. And this is where our big brain comes in very handy! A person uses it as a matter of fact as a large and powerful computer, which turns on when it is necessary to dramatically speed up the solution of complex tasks that require enormous stress and quick response. That is why, although our brain is insanely voracious, it is sooo necessary and irreplaceable.
So how does this "computer" work?
Scientists study and determine the ratio of the volume of the brain to the volume of the bodies of living beings on Earth. They also found out which of the animals has the heaviest brain. It is known that among people there are record holders for the weight of the brain.
Who has the largest brain relative to body?
Comparing the ratio of brain mass to body mass, it turned out that among vertebrates, the hummingbird occupies the first place. This bird has a ratio of 1/12. It would be possible to determine the ratio among invertebrates, however, as such, they do not have a brain, but there are nerve nodes or ganglia. If you calculate the ratio by comparing the mass of nerve endings with the body mass of invertebrates, it turns out that the ant is the champion. Its ratio is 1/4.If a person had a ratio of 1/4, like an ant, the head would weigh at least twenty kilograms, and would be about eight times larger. However, an ant brain is forty thousand times smaller than a human brain when compared to the number of cells it is made up of.
Scientists conducted research and experiments to understand whether the ant has a mind. It turned out that these miniature insects are able to generalize and synthesize the information they receive.
Ants can learn, they mature gradually, which confirms their complex social appearance. And the more complex the species, the more time the ant spends on learning. Exactly nervous system does not allow ants to be considered intelligent animals. Due to the fact that the brain of this insect consists of five hundred thousand neurons, it is not capable of thinking. A number of scientists believe that among ants there is a distribution of the brain among the members of the colony. This distribution is comparable to the connection of computers via the Internet to solve certain problems.
It turns out that each ant is a small particle of a huge super brain. This is a riddle for scientists that they are trying to solve. There is a version that they act in concert thanks to radio waves or telepathy.
Such a coincidence is surprising - a similar ratio in humans is the same as in Mormirus fish or elephant fish. It is equal to 1\38-1\50. Among fish, it is the Mormirus fish that has the largest ratio of brain mass to its body mass.
After examining the ratio of interest among primates, it was found that the largest ratio is not in humans at all, but in the Squirrel Monkey or Saimiri. This ratio in this primate is 1/17.
Animals with big brains
Researchers, after observing dozens different types animals concluded that those whose absolute brain volume is larger have better control over their behavior. This is not about the mass of the brain, but about its ratio with the volume of the body. Interestingly, monkeys, wolves, carnivorous dogs showed good self-control, but the elephant showed poor results.You can evaluate the brain not by the ratio of its volume to the volume of the body, but by size. Several record holders. It is known that among terrestrial animals the brain of the largest mass is in the elephant. About five kilograms - the brain of an Indian elephant weighs so much.
The record holder among all living creatures of the planet in terms of brain weight is the whale Physeter Macrocephalus. The brain of this animal can reach nine kilograms. However, if you calculate the ratio of brain to body, you get 1/40,000. The weight of a whale's brain depends on its age and species. It is known that the blue whale is much larger than the sperm whale, but its brain is smaller and weighs only six kilograms eight hundred grams.
Another owner of a large brain is the northern beluga dolphin. Its brain weighs two kilograms, three hundred and fifty grams, while that of the bottlenose dolphin weighs only one kilogram, seven hundred and thirty-five grams.
The living being of the planet with a big brain is man. On average, his brain weighs from one kilogram twenty grams to one kilogram nine hundred and seventy grams.
The largest human brain
The weight of the human brain depends on many factors. Firstly, the male brain is larger than the female by about one hundred to one hundred and fifty grams. There is no significant difference in brain weight between individual races. 
Our ancestors had much smaller brains than ours. Weight changed significantly when the first primitive man appeared. The brain of Pithecanthropus did not exceed nine hundred cubic centimeters, and the brain of Sinanthropus was about one thousand two hundred and twenty-five cubic centimeters, thus catching up with the brain modern woman. It is known that the Cro-Magnons had a brain, the volume of which is one thousand eight hundred and eighty cubic centimeters.
Today, the brain of a European is about one thousand four hundred and forty-six cubic centimeters. It can be concluded that every two hundred years the brain "shrinks" by one cubic centimeter. I would like to hope that the decrease in volume does not lead to a drop in intelligence, but is caused by an improvement in the design.
It is known that Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's brain weight turned out to be equal to two kilograms and twelve grams. One could consider his brain to be the largest, however, in a certain individual who lived only three years, the weight of the brain was two kilograms nine hundred grams.
Some celebrities just need to keep their brains busy. According to the site, Christina Aguilera does not know where the Cannes Film Festival is taking place. .
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10th place - New convolutions
There is a myth that, learning something new, a person has new convolutions. In fact, a person is not born with convolutions; at the beginning of development, the fetus has a smooth little brain. As they grow, neurons grow too and migrate to different areas of the brain, creating furrows and ridges. By the age of 40 weeks, the brain is almost as tortuous as that of an adult. That is, as we learn, new reliefs do not appear, we are simply born with them.
However, as you learn, the brain does change - the plasticity of the brain is responsible for this, but still, new convolutions do not appear.
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9th place - The human brain is the largest
In proportion to the whole body, the human brain is indeed quite large, but a common misconception is that the human brain is larger than that of any other creature.
The adult human brain weighs approximately 1.3 kg and is 15 cm long. The largest brain belongs to the sperm whale, it weighs more than 8 kg. Another animal with a large brain is an elephant, whose brain weight is about 5 kg.
Many will ask, what about the ratio of brain to body? However, this is where people fall short. In a shrew, the weight of its brain is 10% of the total mass.
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8th place - The level of intelligence depends on the size of the brain
As practice has shown, the size of the brain does not affect the level of intelligence in any way. For example, the brain of I.S. Turgenev weighed 2012, and the brain of Anatole France - 1017. The heaviest brain - 2850 g - was found in an individual who suffered from epilepsy and idiocy. His brain was functionally defective. So, there is no direct relationship between the mass of the brain and the mental abilities of an individual.
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7th place - The older the person, the weaker his memory
In fact, in most cases we observe just such a picture - in people of advanced age, the process of thinking slows down, memory deteriorates, in some cases accompanied by senile insanity.
However, it is not the age that is to blame, but the way of life that each individual person has led and is leading. Some people kept their thinking clear until old age. Of course, for this, one desire is not enough - it is necessary to observe a certain mode of work, rest and nutrition. It is advisable to use healthy foods, among which it is worth noting fish, fresh fruits and vegetables. Intellectual exercises also keep thinking clear.
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6th place - The brain works like a computer
It is a myth. In fact, if we look at how modern computers are structured and how the brain is structured, we will see that the differences between them are fundamental. In a computer, a program stored in memory is executed by a processor, so memory and computation are separated. In the brain, however, this separation is absent, in fact, memory and calculation are combined with each other due to the fact that memory is stored in the structure of connections between nerve cells that perform calculations.
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5th place - Alcohol kills brain cells
Alcoholism, of course, can lead to serious health problems, but experts do not believe that alcohol is the cause of neuronal death. In fact, studies have shown that even constant drinking does not kill neurons.
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4th place - Brain damage makes a person a vegetable
It is not always so. There is different types Brain damage and its impact on a person depends largely on where they are located and how severe they are. Mild brain injuries such as concussions are caused by the brain moving inside the skull, causing bleeding and rupture. The brain recovers surprisingly well from minor injuries, and the vast majority of people who experience minor brain injury do not become permanently disabled.
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3rd place - Hemispheres of the brain
The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for rationality, while the right hemisphere is responsible for creativity. This is only partly true. A study of gifted schoolchildren, winners of high-level mathematical Olympiads, showed that among them there were distinct right-handers, left-handers, and ambidexters (people with the same manual dexterity), that is, these schoolchildren had a slightly different distribution of functions across the hemispheres.
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2nd place - The brain is gray matter
Many of us have heard that the cells of the cerebral cortex are gray, and this statement is beyond doubt. However, only the cells of the dead brain that have left the host's body have a gray color. natural color living brain - red. By the way, brain tissue resembles ordinary soft jelly in structure.
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1st place - The myth of 10% of the used part of the brain
The myth that most people use less than 10% of their brains. Neuroscientist Barry Gordon characterizes the myth as "ridiculously misguided," adding, "We use virtually every part of the brain, and they're active nearly all the time."
Research shows that every department human brain has its own set of features. If the 10% myth is true, then the chance of brain damage would be far less – we should only be concerned about keeping the small 10% of our brain safe. But in reality, even damage to a very small area of the brain can lead to serious consequences for our functioning. Brain scans have also shown that there is a certain level of activity throughout the brain, even during sleep.