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How Does Putting Phineas Gage Relate To Psychology

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Have you ever heard the story of Phineas Gage? If you haven’t, he was a young man that suffered a metal tamping iron entering and exciting his head. This injury led to him having damage to his prefrontal cortex, setting him back to having a similar brain structure to an adolescent. In the text, a gruesome but true story about brain science by John Fleishman, “Putting Phineas Together Again” I learned that if a mature prefrontal cortex endures a serious injury, it can truly change the person physically and mentally. After his accident, Phineas acted like an adolescent and resembled one through his behavior. I know that he acted like a child, was very unserious about the things he did, and had trouble planning and making decisions. I know this because according to Dr. …show more content…

I also know this because in the text it says, “Executive functions enable us to plan and coordinate our decisions and actions, and to exert mental flexibility and self-control. As shown in the case of Phineas Gage, patients with prefrontal cortex damage find it difficult to plan—whether it’s planning what they’re going to do today, next week or next year” (24). This quote proves that Phineas and adolescents have the same ‘executive functions.’ Phineas wasn’t just similar to an adolescent because of his behavior, he also had the same brain structure as an adolescent. Both Phineas and adolescents have a premature prefrontal cortex. Phineas has a premature prefrontal cortex because his injury severely damaged his prefrontal cortex and an adolescents prefrontal cortex has simply not matured yet. I know this because in the text it says, “Many studies have confirmed that one of the brain regions that shows the most striking and prolonged changes is the prefrontal cortex.studies have shown that, when the prefrontal cortex is damaged, a variety of cognitive functions are seriously affected”

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532 Words | 3 Pages

Imagine that you were Phineas Gage's coworker looking at a huge iron rod go through the pointy end of a rod enter his left cheekbone, pass behind his left eye, through the front of his brain, and out the middle of his forehead just above the hairline. Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science mentions the process of how the accident happened and the recovery after the accident, the Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of a Teenage Brain then cites the process of a teenage brain and showing the thought process of the teenage brain. Both of these texts help tie together the connection of Phineas Gage and the adolescent brain. Phineas Gage was involved in an experiment that went wrong and let's just say it ended with a tamping iron straight through his head. After the tamping iron accident, Phineas's behavior and brain begin to be more similar to an adolescent's behavior and brain because he has made some very impulsive, made risky decisions, and used lots of vulgar language towards women, coworkers, and his peers.

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300 Words | 2 Pages

The undeveloped brain mainly uses the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for instinctual responses. In the play Romeo and Juliet get married after a day of knowing each other. Also when Romeo thought Juliet had died his first thought was that he should die with his love. This goes to show that teens

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531 Words | 3 Pages

Can you imagine an iron rod going through your head and surviving? Phineas Gage lived for 11 years after having the unfortunate brain injury. (chap 1, para 2)In the novel A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman we learn about Phineas’s behavior changes. After the brain injury he is still alive, but he acts differently. That is similar to adolescents because their brains are still developing, and their actions are very similar to his.

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566 Words | 3 Pages

Phineas act's immaturely, rudely, impulsively, and disrespectfully, and with no self-control after his brain injury. The actions of an adolescent but something different from both of their brains. Phineas' brain is completed but stuck in one time when he was younger, but an adolescent is still growing, and their brain isn't yet not done. For example, in the text, Phineas has the passion of a man but he still acts like a "small child" or/and an adolescent, but he has a huge hole in his brain, something which an adolescent does not act off but he in fact does act of this injury. Phineas' brain structure is not like an adolescent, and the way he acts is not because of what an adolescent is going through "puberty" or a change it is because of the tampering iron piercing through a part of his brain that made his act differently from an adolescent but now he acts the same as

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564 Words | 3 Pages

According to Source A, The Ever-Plastic Brain, “Cognitive processes that rely on the prefrontal cortex, including many executive functions such as the ability to inhibit automatic behavior, undergo substantial and protracted development in adolescence.” Phineas’ prefrontal cortex is having damage and adolescent's prefrontal cortex is still growing. This makes finding many things difficult but also easy because they have a few of the same outcomes. However, Phineas’ frontal lobe injury caused his brain to never be the same. So be said, “The iron passage left him alive and conscious but forever changed” (Pg. 253 picture description).

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1007 Words | 5 Pages

Phineas has something not accurate about his prefrontal cortex. Likewise, adolescents also have something wrong with their prefrontal cortex. The passage, Putting Phineas Together Again, describes the process of finding the path pf the tamping iron. On page

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385 Words | 2 Pages

Adolescents have a less developed frontal cortex and a fully developed limbic system, causing them to take more risks and do more dangerous activities. Phineas’s behavior is similar to an adolescent because he acted like a child and had poor decision making skills. Body Paragraph #1: What is a Body Para After Phineas’ accident, he acted similar to an adolescent. Phineas acted like a child.

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The behavior between Phineas and Adolescents is kinda different and the same because Phineas acted like a child and the Adolescents make very poor decisions which kinda revolves around Phineas because he did make some very bad/poor decisions and if Adolescents don’t have all the executive functions that they would need to have when they are an adult they would probably make poor/bad decisions too. When Phineas one part of his brain got injured Frontal Cortex he wasn't acting like himself making bad decisions and acting like a 5 year old but that was all because his Frontal Cortex was damaged and the Frontal Cortex controlled that behavior and Adolescence does not affect children or adults because it's rare but Adolescents are more likely to affect young adults because they are more likely to make risk taking decisions because their brain isn't fully developed. And if we look at the Adolescent brain they make bad/poor decisions when they are in their young adulthood and when they accident happened when they were in their young adulthood. My final thought is that Phineas behavior and decision making is not the greatest because of the accident and he was in his young adulthood and Adolescence made bad decisions because when you get into your young adulthood are brains are not fully developed and that causes us to make poor decisions like Phineas

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”(healthychildren.org) It is true that the adolescent brain is still developing and not fully mature, but they should

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After all, the brain that he had did not work in the section he needed so other parts of the brain would take care of those parts. After Phineas’ accident, he acts differently to an adolescent. “Phineas is like a small child who says he is running away from home after lunch and then comes up with a new idea over his sandwich.” (Paragraph 33). This shows that

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639 Words | 3 Pages

How would you feel if you lived in a country that made you fight in a war at the age of 12 and you'll either get forgiven or send to jail? You should be sent to jail if you joined for fun and liked killing. But if you joined to protect others and to do it for a good reason then you should be forgiven. I think kids should be forgiven because maybe they were forced to, they did it for protection, and they did it so they won’t hurt them or kill them, and because they needed a shelter, food and because they were poor. One reason I think child soldiers should be forgiven is because maybe they were forced to join and kill.

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` In the article Beautiful Brains by David Dobbs, evolutionary research conveys that during the adolescent and teenage years the brain encounters an astonishing amount of growth and transformation. Dobbs states that these developments contribute to many of the irresponsible decisions made by teens. In the past, the brain was thought to cease maturing around the age of ten, however, new investigations have found that between the ages of twelve and twenty five, the brain continues to develop, undergoing a considerable metamorphosis. During this metamorphosis, myelin insulates a greater number of neuron’s axons, increasing the speed in which messages are exchanged, dendrites branch out and become broader, accelerating the rate at which messages are received, and synaptic pruning occurs which causes the brain’s cortex to become slimmer and more adept. During teenage years, the brain is still learning to network as well as deal with day to day obstacles such as stress, exhaustion and problems.

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842 Words | 4 Pages

The author points out that “Brain imaging studies reveal that the regions of the adolescent brain responsible for controlling thoughts, actions and emotions are not fully developed.” Brain imaging studies have repeatedly shown that the brains in younger people are still developing well over the age of 18. Garinger states that

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250 Words | 1 Pages

There are many similarities between Phineas' brain and that of an adolescent. Both the adolescent brain and Phineas' brain have difficulty controlling their impulsivity. While Phineas' brain is fully developed and an adolescent brain is not, they both also have the same parts. Until Phineas had his accident he lost some parts of his brain, and they both also have trouble making choices. His brain is like an adolescent brain.

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802 Words | 4 Pages

Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages: the sensorimotor stage, from birth to age 2; the preoperational stage, from age 2 to about age 7; the concrete operational stage, from age 7 to 11; and the formal operational stage, which begins in adolescence and spans into adulthood. He believed that there were four necessary ingredients for cognitive development which included: “maturation of the nervous system, experiences gained through interaction with physical world, social environment, and child’s active participation in adapting to environment & constructing knowledge from experience.” (Sullivan, 2014, Slide 3) The sensorimotor stage occurs between birth and age 2. Infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and handling objects.

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