For the most part, scientists don’t really know much about the brain. While a lot of research has been done, a lot of hypothesis tested and a lot of theories proven to be true, the best science can determine is that there’s way more that we don’t know about the brain than what we do know.
For every brain rule we find, there tend to exist brains which break those rules. This part of the brain is for speech, this part for math, this part the sex drive, this part makes your arms and legs work… but what about a man who was discovered to have none of those areas in his brain? A civil servant and father of two children, he was shown to have a brain that mostly fluid—estimates say he had as much as 75% less brain tissue than someone who is “normal.”
And then there’s Einstein’s brain, cut out of his head (after he died, of course) before the rest of him was cremated. Sliced into thin sheets, imaged, and studied for decades. What did they find? Not much. A more or less normal brain, except for a missing Sylvian fissure, which may have resulted in a slightly wider parietal lobe, and may have meant some of his brain matter was more tightly packed together.
But they’ve also shown that, in general, women, who are physically smaller than men, nevertheless have the same amount of brain matter, just more tightly packed together. Theories suggest that this tightness of neurons results in faster neural communication.
More or less, any one healthy brain is the same as any other healthy brain. Even though we know this isn’t true, even though the very structure of our individuals brains cause and are caused by our own distinct individuality.
But until we know more about the brain, and how microscopic difference make us different, one brain is as good as another.
It’s what you do with it that counts.
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