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Phineas Gage Research Papers

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Have you ever wondered what Phineas was like after his accident? We read the book Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleishman (“Putting Phineas Together Again”). Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (“The Right Sort of Risk”). Phineas Gage was struck through the cheek and frontal lobe with a metal rod. He is important because he lived for 11 and a half years after his accident. The things that are interesting to me are how he was able to live for 11 and a half years after his accident. His mindset after his accident was like a child. That is why he could get along with kids better than adults. He was not able to make decisions on his own because that part of the brain was damaged. Phineas’s behavior is similar to an adolescent’s because his prefrontal cortex is damaged so he can’t make decisions on his own. After Phineas’ accident, he acted similar to an adolescent. Phineas acts like a child. “A child in his intellectual capacities and …show more content…

I know this because in the text it says, “The case of Phineas Gage suggests that we are human because our frontal lobes are set up so we can get along with other humans”(13). This shows that Phineas’s damaged his prefrontal cortex and sense his frontal lobe is damaged, it is harder for him to get along with other people. Adolescent limbic systems are already mature, but the prefrontal cortex is not mature yet. In the text it tells me, “The core idea is that, in young adolescents, the limbic system is already mature and particularly sensitive to the rewarding feeling that risk-taking sometimes elicits. At the same time, the prefrontal cortex—which stops us acting on impulse and inhibits risk-taking—is not yet mature”(7). This shows that it is harder for adolescents to make decisions and plan things because their brain isn’t fully

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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

Phineas Gage’s brain was fully developed, but a tampering iron went through the front of his brain, otherwise known as the frontal lobe. On the other hand, in paragraph 5 it says that their brain stops growing when they are 22-25, and it is not permanent damage. Their brains can still develop, but Phineas’s brain can’t. Adolescents' brains are also different because they can understand social situations better than Phineas can, for example, in paragraph 32 Phineas says dirty and inappropriate things around women. Causing him to lose jobs, and not be able to have the same friends as he did before the

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506 Words | 3 Pages

It was a terrible mishap. I could see something in Gene that I hadn't seen before when we started to talk about Phineas's death. All of a sudden Gene broke out, " I tried to tell him what really happened when I visited him at his home. He didn't believe me, and he got upset when I told him. " I knew now that what Gene did was on purpose, but I still didn't understand how Phineas got hurt the second time.

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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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780 Words | 4 Pages

Connor-Smith describes how the brain will affect teenagers and what happens to their brains, while Zimmermann describes what happens in the brains of young children. Connor-Smith tells us that adults have developed a chemical defender in their brains for when they have anxieties that will soothe them and generate positive thoughts. However, teenagers don’t have this defender and are therefore more likely to get more upset over embarrassing situations. Connor-Smith says, “Unfortunately, the systems that trigger embarrassment and fear of rejection fire up years before the systems that tame bad feelings.” While Connor-Smith explains the result that having unbalanced systems in our brain can do to us, especially as teenagers and the inability to soothe our anxieties, Zimmermann explains how small children are constantly building more connections and pruning away those connections that we don’t use as often.

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697 Words | 3 Pages

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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979 Words | 4 Pages

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

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512 Words | 3 Pages

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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548 Words | 3 Pages

` 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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494 Words | 2 Pages

In the article “Startling Finds on Teenage Brains,” by Paul Thompson, he speaks about how adolescents lose brain tissue as they mature. Specifically gray matter, which according to Thompson, “...brain researchers believe supports all our thinking and emotions.” The matter is being purged at a rapid rate. It’s taking with it the cells that support risk-taking, impulses, and self-control. While this shouldn’t prove to be an excuse for adolescents to break the law, it should prove to be an explanation.

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