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Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable: 19 survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life—effects sufficiently ...
After the trial concluded and Guiteau passed, an autopsy of his brain was conducted. By this time, autopsy had evolved into a microscopic art, and so Spitzka took to the microscope with samples of Guiteau's brain. Of course, Spitzka found holes in his gray matter and extensive damage to the tissue that "nourished neurons".
Phineas Gage, who sustained a severe frontal lobe injury in 1848, has been called a case of dysexecutive syndrome. Gage's psychological changes are almost always exaggerated – of the symptoms listed, the only ones Gage can be said to have exhibited are "anger and frustration", slight memory impairment, and "difficulty in planning". [21]
[2] [3] Written for the layperson, Damásio uses the dramatic 1848 railroad accident case of Phineas Gage as a reference for incorporating data from multiple modern clinical cases, enumerating damaging cognitive effects when feelings and reasoning become anatomically decoupled. [3]
Following a frontal lobe injury, an individual's abilities to make good choices and recognize consequences are often impaired. Memory impairment is another common effect associated with frontal lobe injuries, but this effect is less documented and may or may not be the result of flawed testing. [ 3 ]
Diffuse axonal injury is caused by shearing forces on the brain leading to lesions in the white matter tracts of the brain. [31] These shearing forces are seen in cases where the brain had a sharp rotational acceleration, and is caused by the difference in density between white matter and grey matter. [32]
John Martyn Harlow (1819–1907) was an American physician primarily remembered for his attendance on brain-injury survivor Phineas Gage, and for his published reports on Gage's accident and subsequent history. Boston Herald, May 20, 1907. Harlow was born in Whitehall, New York on November 25, 1819 to Ransom and Annis Martyn Harlow. [1]
Penetrating head trauma can cause impairment or loss of abilities controlled by parts of the brain that are damaged. A famous example is Phineas Gage, whose personality appears to have changed (though not as dramatically as usually described) after a perforating injury to his frontal lobe(s).