Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage “was a construction crew worker who was very serious, industrious and energetic when it came to his work ethic” (Carlson, 2014, p. 250). After his accident “he became childish, irresponsible, thoughtless of others, had temper outburst and was unable to make or carry out plans” (Carlson, 2014, p. 250). Because of this dramatic change in behavior, “people said that it looked as if Dr. Jekyll had become Mr. Hyde” (Carlson, 2014, p. 250). “Damage to the vmPFC causes serious and often debilitating impairments of behavioral control and decision-making. “These impairments appear to be a consequence of emotional dysregulation obtained ratings of emotional behaviors of patients with damage to the vmPFC—such as frustration tolerance, emotional…

The story of Phineas Gage begins on September 13, 1848. He worked on the railroad and a foreman. He had an accidentally explosion that occurred causing his tamping iron to go through his head. More specifically, it entered under his left cheek and came out of the top of his head. The left front part of his brain was destroyed but he may not have even lost consciousness. Dr. John Martyn Harlow treated him, Phineas survived and returned home. Months after the accident Phineas felt well enough to…

In the history of psychology, Phineas Gage is the one of the patients who became famous patients in neuroscience. From being injured traumatically in the brain with an iron rod that was driven through his entire skull, it destroyed his frontal lobe. Miraculously, Phineas Gage survived the accident but there was a change in him that everyone stated him as a “different man”. On September 13, 1848, 25-year-old Phineas was working as the supervisor with a group of men preparing a railroad bed near…

The Curious Case of Phineas Gage Phineas Gage is among one of the earliest known survivors of a major brain injury. Gage’s brain was severely injured upon working on a railroad near the town of Cavendish, Vermont. With the occurrence of the injury, Gage should have experienced not only major bodily damage, but also severe mental complications. After the incident, Gage barely escaped death, struggling to survive with a large hole in his head. This wasn’t the only issue observed with Gage after…

When I first heard about History Day, I was reading a lot of nonfiction, and one of my books was about Phineas Gage. The book had a lot of information about things that neurologists had learned about the brain from his accident. I thought that he sounded interesting, and wanted to learn more. I thought that maybe I could do my History Day project on early neuroscience. Later, my mom was talking to a neuroscientist friend about how I was reading about Gage. He brought up H.M. I read a Washington…

Phineas Gage was a railroad foreman in the 1800’s that survived a work accident, which resulted in a “iron rod— weighing 131/ 4 pounds and stretching 31/ 2 feet from its pointed tip to its flat base 11/ 4 inches in diameter” being driven through his skull (Carroll et al. 143). His accident and location of his injury “ the left frontal lobe” led his doctor to recognize that different areas of the brain where responsible for different functions and that head injuries can indeed lead to…

Phineas Gage. An unusually fit man, with an iron build brimming with fortitude. A man with the smarts to find a problem, and the strength to solve it. Yet he was the embarrassment of the family, the man who never held his tongue. The man who could not hold a job anywhere, and did not care for anyone besides himself. No one, especially Phineas Gage, could foresee the change that he would be struck with one faithful day in 1848. They stood on the grey-brown, dirt and gravel path. Shards of rock…

Your childhood is a time to figure out who you are and what you want to do. The frontal lobe plays a major role in this because it controls the way you act. Your personality changes indefinitely as your frontal lobe does. For example, Phineas Gage, a railroad worker, suffered a life-altering accident and miraculously survived. A large beam was thrust directly into his frontal lobe, and he managed to survive, but he was never the same afterward. His personality was altered dramatically, he went…

It is hard to imagine seeing a hand with a hole right in the middle of it. The pain of a huge metal hole puncher coming down incredibly fast onto one’s hand and crushing it, and the thought that someone could never use their hand again, is unimaginable. However, it was possible for Jonah Brown because that is the sight, pain, and thought that he experienced. Jonah Brown is eighteen years old and lives in the country just outside of Edgerton, Ohio. He graduated high school last year and worked at…

Phineas Gage, born in 1823, and his extraordinary story are widely known. His story has greatly contributed to neuroscientists and psychologists. In about 1848 Gage was working on the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in Vermont. This day started out just as any “normal” day would. The men would often use explosives to break through hard objects, such as rock. On this day in particular, Phineas set off an explosive and a 3 foot 7, 13 pound iron rod went straight through his cheek and out through…