In 1843, a railroad worker named Phineas Gage was seriously injured duri explosi
ID: 257647 • Letter: I
Question
In 1843, a railroad worker named Phineas Gage was seriously injured duri explosion on the job. A tapered metal rod ranging from 0.25 inches to 1.25 inches in diameter and over 3 feet long entered his skull just under his left cheekbone and exited through the top othis skull. The rod was found over twenty feet away. Amazingly, Gage lived even though he suffered massive damage to the left front of his brain. His personality and intellectual abilities changed, however. Before the accident, he was respected as a smart, capable and even-tempered man. After the accident, he was foul-mouthed and bad-tempered and could not make up his mind. In the years immediately preceding his death, he began to have epileptic seizures. Explain the changes observed in Mr. Gage based on your knowledge of the brain.Explanation / Answer
Phineus Gage (1823-1860) was foreman of a crew of railroad construction workers that excavated rocks for a railroad track. On 13th September, 1848, 25-year-old Gage was preparing for an explosion. He was doing this compacting a bore with explosive powder with help of a tamping iron. However, the tampling iron ignited the powder and caused the iron to enter his skull at a high speed. The iron entered from under his left cheek bone, passed through the skull and exited from top of his head. Gage was conscious and able to walk within minutes. Dr Harlow cleaned the wound, removing small fragments of bone. He replaced them with some of the attached larger skull fragments. However, some days, the wound got infected but Gage recovered.
Gage had full possession of reasoning but there were dramatic changes in his personality. He is fitful, irreverent, indulged in profanity. He has no respect for his colleagues, impatient and obstinent, capricious and vacillating. Thus, he had lost social inhibitions. He died of epileptic seizures (not related to the injury) 13 years after his accident.
Analysis of Gage’s skull after death, indicated that his left frontal lobe was damaged. This resulted in the defects in emotional processing and rational decision-making. The left frontal lobe controls high level cognitive functions such as planning, initiating, and organizing, and personality. Some part of his cortical grey and white matter was affected
. Connections were lost between the left frontal, left temporal and right frontal cortices and the left limbic structures of the brain. The connective bundles damaged included the uncinate fasciculus that the cingulum bundle, and the superior longitudinal fasciculus. The abnormalities in the uncinate fasciculus, may have led to defect in cognitive functions. The injury to the left frontal lobe may have indirectly affected the functioning of the right hemisphere. Hence, Gage was not able to think rationally. He could not plan or organize and has changes in his personality. The white matter damage was more significant than the grey matter damage.