After Einstein passed away in 1955, at 76 a Princeton University pathologist named Thomas Harvey removed the physicist's brain during an autopsy in hopes of studying it to unlock the secret of Einstein's genius. Harvey said he secured the permission to study the brain after the fact from one of Einstein's sons with the promise that the findings would be published in medical journals.After measuring the brain, which was no larger than average, Harvey had a colleague dissect it into 240 pieces, which he preserved and began sending to various neurologists to evaluate. For a long time, there was nothing to publish because there were no findings that Einstein's brains was any different than anyone else's.
It would take 30 years before any findings revealed anything of interest. If 1985, Dr. Marian Diamond found that Einstein had a higher than normal amount of glial cells, which help neurons to work more efficiently.
Diamond's research however, was later discredited in certain circles.
Ten years later, another scientist found that Einstein's brain had a parietal lobe that was 15 percent larger than the average human brain's. It's no coincidence that this part of the brain helps with three-dimensional and spatial reasoning and mathematical abilities, something Einstein knew a thing or two about.
The parietal lobe was also missing the Sylvian fissure, a divider that separates the parietal lobe into to sections. It's theorized that the lack of the fissure allowed his brain cells to communicate faster than the average human's.