Phineas Gage and how brain research has changed

Overview

Phineas Gage's injury and personality change, Damasio's reconstruction of the damage, phrenology, split-brain research, lobotomies and brain scanning.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Who was Phineas Gage?

   Model answer

   Phineas Gage was an American railway foreman injured in 1848. An iron rod was blasted through his skull and he survived.

2. 2

   How did Phineas Gage's behaviour change after his injury?

   Model answer

   Gage became impulsive, rude and unreliable after the accident. Friends said Gage was no longer the responsible man he had been.

3. 3

   What was the aim of Damasio et al. (1994)?

   Model answer

   Damasio and colleagues aimed to work out exactly which brain areas the iron rod had damaged in Phineas Gage. The team wanted to explain Gage's personality change.

4. 4

   What evidence did Damasio's team have to work with?

   Model answer

   The team had Gage's skull and the iron rod, kept in a Harvard museum. Gage's brain itself had not been preserved.

5. 5

   Describe the procedure of Damasio et al. (1994).

   Model answer

   The team photographed and measured Gage's skull. A computer model of a brain was fitted to the skull and possible paths of the rod were tested.

6. 6

   What were the results of Damasio et al. (1994)?

   Model answer

   The rod damaged the ventromedial part of the pre-frontal cortex in both hemispheres. The left side was damaged more than the right.

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