Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was a man with kind and sweet personality but after a terrible accident he totally changed physically and mentally. What could have caused that? Th following questions and answers are going to clear it all.

1. Who was Phineas Gage?

-Phineas gage was a man that worked on a railroad construction and that got hurt drastically.
2. Describe the event which caused his injury.

-On September 13, 1848, he was making an explosive hole by putting blasting powder and a detonator on a hole, then covering it with sand and finally compacting it with a iron rod, but that day he did not cover it with sand so a spark detonated the powder and the iron rod went into his cheekbone and got out by the top of his head, passing by his frontal lobe and damaging a great part of it.

3. What happened to him as a result of his injuries?

-Amazingly and even though he got seriously damaged he survived and eventually could go back to life. There was one problem though, his attitude and personality changed. He became a social renegate and people hated him much and there was nothing here could be done.



Phineas Gage and the Iron Rod

4. What did we learn about the brain based on this case study?

-We learned that the brain´s frontal lobe plays an important role in ones personality. Phineas Gage used to be a normal triumphant man but the damaged frontal lobe made him become an ugly person, but anyway it is not required to have an iron rod pass through your skull in order to become a bad person, you just have to have a big frontal lobe damage and you will become so.

5. Explain the idea of brain localization?

- Brain localization is the division of the brain in two parts; front and back. The two work on different places of the body, the back works on the senses and the front works on feelings and thinking, this separation is important because it secures the most important parts and mantains a stable environment in the body.
6. Explain the concept of brain lateralization?

- This system is similar to localization but instead it is on th left and the right sides of the brain and each one controls the opposite side of each other (left lateral=right side and vice versa) and they control the unconciousness of the person.

The Lobes of the Brain

From this we can say that the damage in the localization part in Phineas Gage´s brain is what caused the cahnges in his attitude and personality.