Phineas Gage: What we learned from the man with a hole in his head: A man survived with a hole in his head for almost 12 years. No, seriously, he did. We have learned so much about how the brain works from the Phineas Gage case, even though it is over 175 years old. Moreover, we’ve learned about what parts of the brain do, and how it can affect our personality. We have learned about the roles played by the prefrontal cortex and how Phineas Gage plays an important role in modern science. One thing that the Phineas Gage case has shown us is how brain damage can cause changes in personality. After Phineas’ accident, he lost all his social skills, whereas before he was respectful, trustworthy, and likeable. This condition is post traumatic personality …show more content…
When offered $1,000 for the pebbles he found on the side of the road, he declined. During that time, $1,000 is the equivalent of $39,040 today, which is a good sum of money for a few rocks. He must have been attached to them, which would make sense in his case because he was attached to several seemingly random objects, including the same tamping iron that caused his injury. Furthermore, he was also drawn to animals and children. He loved telling his nieces and nephews about the wild adventures he had on his journey, which he believed were real. He probably believed this because his brain was filling in the gaps for the parts of his memory he lost. When your brain does this, it’s called confabulation. All were found in similar cases to Phineas’ due to the area of the brain that is affected, called the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex controls many different aspects of the body, most of which deal with the social skills that Phineas lost. For example, Phineas lost his sense of money. If you look at the prefrontal cortex’s roles, you’ll see several that, if damaged, could cause this. Such as, predicting the consequences of your behavior, decision making, and controlling behavior and …show more content…
For this reason, the Phineas Gage story is what’s called a textbook case. People who go to school for neurology or psychology will study this case because we learned, and can still learn, so much about how the brain works and how to treat injuries like this. For years, doctors have studied the Phineas Gage case, trying to figure out how he survived that long. One famous instance of this is when two doctors, Hanna and Antonio Damasio, used computer software to map out the path of the tamping iron through his head based on the 2 wounds on his cheek and forehead. From that, they could see that the tamping iron went right through his prefrontal cortex, which caused the loss of social skills and the other symptoms mentioned before. In short, the Phineas Gage case was a major breakthrough in neurology and brain science. We have learned a lot about how the brain works and where different skills are controlled in the brain. We have learned how damage to the brain can influence one’s personality and social skills, we’ve learned that the prefrontal cortex controls all kinds of things including emotions and social skills, and we’ve been able to study Phineas Gage’s story and skull to learn about how he survived for so long and how the injury