Phineas Gage Case Study

Phineas Gage: A Traumatic Event

The case of Phineas Gage is quite interesting, and has been one of few cases where psychologists and doctors were able to study the brain under traumatic circumstances. Gage was a 25-year-old railroad worker for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad. He was an average, nice guy who worked hard like everyone else. Unfortunately, while Gage was working one day, a spark ignited the packed explosives in the rock, and thrusted his tampering iron through his lower left cheek, out of the top of his head. Both sides of his prefrontal cortex had been damaged, and the left lobe of his cerebrum had also been damaged (Costandi, 2006). Many were amazed that he remained conscious minutes after the incident, and that the incident

The cerebrum mainly controls the person’s language ability and the left prefrontal cortex is mainly responsible for self-control and decision making (Weiten, 2014), and also personality traits and organization of emotional reactions (Prefrontal Cortex, 2015). Gage only acquired damage to these parts of his brain. Other daily functions such as movement and his basic living processes were unharmed. The damage done to his prefrontal cortex somewhat resembled a lobotomy procedure. A lobotomy is a procedure that severs the connections between the lobes of the frontal lobe of the brain (Lewis, 2013). The tampering iron practically performed a lobotomy on Gage’s frontal lobe when it diagonally pierced his left

It’s a miracle that Gage did not die from his initial wound dressings after the incident. Gage was taken care of by the local doctor, Harlow (Costandi, 2006). Instead of sewing up the wound, Harlow cleaned up the wound the best he could, and left it to drain into the dressings. He removed several small fragments of his skull, replaced some of the larger skull pieces and used adhesive straps for the larger opening .Over a few days, Gage developed a fungus in his brain that could have killed him, but Harlow was able to drain his head of puss and infection (Costandi, 2006). Although he was never considered to be “the same Phineas Gage”, he functioned properly for more years to come while retaining his motor skills. He died 17 years later after the incident (Costandi, 2006). Gage survived a freak accident, but had to live with the negative consequences. He was never the same again and his skull never fully healed. The damage done to his brain altered his personality for good. Although this was a terrible incident, it lead to many medical and psychological conclusions and provided evidence for the functions of the different parts of the brain. Gage’s skull and tampering iron can be found at the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard University School of Medicine (Costandi,