Case Study - Phineas Gage Flashcards
What were the locations of gages lesions?
Left frontal lobe
What functions were impaired?
Inhibition
Social conduct
Planning
Slight weakness in memory, but a stranger wouldn’t notice (Jackson 1849)
What were the spared functions ?
Motor control
Speech
Normal awareness
*frontal lobe lesion means that executive functioning was impaired rather than anything else
What was gages case history?
Change in personality from mild mannered to aggressive
Managed to become a stage coach driver in chile
Returned home to family after suffering seizures
Died 12 years after the accident
What did Damasio use gages case as evidence for?
What was the problem with this?
His somatic marker hypothesis and how the frontal lobe is crucial for emotion regulation.
But many believe that gages personality differences were exaggerated
What did Hanna Damasio believe about the location of the lesions?
Due to the diagonal angle of the bar she believed that both frontal lobes were affected.
Who corroborated harlows belief that only the left frontal lobe was damaged using CT scans?
Ratiu et al
According to phrenology which brain areas were damaged?
Benevolence, hence his use in profanity
Veneration which is important for value of God, religion, respect for peers and authority.
Van horn also concluded that there was damage to gages brain but to which part specifically ?
The white matter of the frontal lobe
Who studied phineas gage?
Harlow
