Phineas Gage

Survivors of traumatic brain injury are lucky. Two examples of lucky traumatic brain injury survivors are Phineas Gage and Gary Busey. These two are lucky along with the other millions of traumatic brain injury survivors. Phineas Gage and Gary Busey were both lucky because they were given a second chance at life. In addition both narrowly evaded death.

In the discussion of the human mind and how it actually works, there are a few distinct philosophical concepts that many believe to be an accurate diagnosis. Three of these views are Dualism, Physicalism, and Functionalism. They each portray a different view on how the mind functions in some cases physically or even mentally and separate from the actual human brain. perfect way to exam these approaches is to take an in depth look at the interesting case of Phineas Gage. Gage, born in 1823, was a railroad construction worker in the northeastern region of the United States. On September 13th in 1848, Gage was working on a railroad project in the state of Vermont and was filling a whole with explosive gunpowder and was packing the power in powder

“The Human Brain”, by myPerspectives, is an informative article that claims that the brain is a complex organ that is truly impressive. The brain is a key part of the central nervous system, that controls the entire body’s activities, to simple things such as breathing. These actions are fired through neurons, that quickly travel through the spinal cord. Surprisingly, the brain transmits these messages at an unimaginable rate, at 150 miles per hour, through 85 billion cells, called neurons. These neurons can form up to 10,000 synapses, or connections to each other. By itself, the brain can create billions of synapses, which change the structure of the brain every time new information is learned. However, there is still much that scientists

This week of class was very interesting once again. We watched several films, read our first book, and had some class discussions. These three things provided me with a great deal of information on the 1975 FBI shooting at Pine Ridge and on Native American/American Indian myths and legends.

As we all know, the human brain is the most insubstantial and vital organ in the human body as it is the command center for every other body part (newscientist.com). Any slight wound to this organ could lead to severe consequences usually encountered at that very moment. It may be an extremely low chance of a major head injury, but it does happen to millions of people annually. One single concussion, provided with the lack of healing, could lead to short-term and long-term memory loss, depression,

In 2002, Mike Webster, a legendary football player, suddenly died at the age of 50. After examining his body, Dr. Bennet Omalu became curious as to what exactly was the cause of Webster’s death. Being a neuropathologist, Dr. Omalu knew Webster’s death was related to his brain. Omalu took samples of Webster’s brain and studied it over

The most challenging topic for me was the Unit 6: A Normal World. At first, I had difficulty understanding the Standard scores and Percentiles of a distribution. However, the seminar and discussion posts in Unit 6 helped me a lot to get through and have a better understanding of the Normal distribution.

Imagine a situation where your entire personality is changed forever by an object that pierces an area of your brain. Those who have had a frontal lobotomy, whether purposefully or not, have had their personality changed permanently. An unlucky foreman of the Rutland Railroad, Phineas Gage, was on the receiving end of a tragic occurrence that severed the frontal lobe area of his prefrontal cortex. He underwent the experience of having a railroad spike pierce him beneath his left cheek and exit through his skull, consequently injuring an important area of his brain. This occurrence changed one part of Gage’s personality completely, though he seemed almost entirely functional after his accident. The one thing that changed in Gage was his ability to imagine the future. He lived completely present in the moment. The unique accident that affected Phineas Gage can be broken down with various different philosophical approaches to answer what is called the “mind-body problem”. The mind-body problem is composed of attempting to explain things like beliefs, consciousness, emotions, etc., in organisms. Physicalism, dualism, and functionalism all have their unique explanation for the mind-body problem’s implication of Phineas Gage’s accident.

It was the 17th century British scientist Thomas Willis who recognized that the custard like tissue of the brain was where our mental world existed. The brain is an electric organ. Now we know that instead of animal spirits, voltage spikes travel through it and out into the body’s nervous system.

The nineteenth century saw an explosion in knowledge regarding the brain unlike any before. For centuries, the brain had been considered the seat of human intelligence. However, the brain of the classics was a singular organ of

At the age of nineteen, Dick Hickock suffered head trauma as a result of a car accident. His father testified that Dick’s behavior changed, after the accident. Traumatic Brain

Phineas Gage, a 25 year old construction worker is known as one of the most famous patients that suffered from a traumatic brain injury. While working at a railroad site, an iron tamping rod (43 inches long, 1.25 diameter) went through his left cheek, through his brain, and out the skull. He surprisingly ended up surviving this traumatic injury. After a month in the hospital, he was back out on the street. Once a nice, caring person, Phineas turned into an aggressive man who could not even keep a job. Just like Phineas Gage, a TBI can potentially change everything. Brain studies on traumatic brain injuries are increasing every year. Even though the brain is very functional, brain injuries can have many physical, emotional, social, and

There were many good topics we learned about this semester and the topic that I think is the best is when we learned about was the 19th Amendment. the 19th Amendment was created to give women their rights. Around the roaring twenties there was a big protest called the women’s rights movement which caused women to have their rights granted to them. Before this movement women did have the right to do anything really, they didn’t have the right to vote, they didn’t have have the right to own anything, they could not go out and buy anything because they could not work, and they could not do as they pleased. Women only really had a few jobs and that is stay at the house all day cook, clean, and take care of their husbands. This is why the Women’s

However, the most memorable thing I was able to see that day was the human brain. Looking at it, it didn’t look much different than models we had used in class. The student in charge of that section went over the fundamental parts of the brain, things I had studied for class. Though it was interesting, the moment that made it really real for me was the moment I was able to hold it. Holding it is my hand, the basic anatomy of the brain went away. I stood in an awed silence as I tried to imagine the things it had seen, had heard, the life it had lived. This was the motor to human existence. Though brains may look similar on the outside, on the inside they were so unique, so different, each like a snowflake, only ever occurring once. It was in that moment that I knew I wanted to learn all I could about this fascinating object that is the mind, unlock doors that had previously been closed, and leave the world a better place than I found it.

The human brain is a mystery that has been studied for centuries in attempt to understand how it functions. Scientists first thought that the brain was a structure that functioned a whole. It was in the early 1600’s where the first ideas of localisation of function in the brain started. At this time Rene Descartes discovered a tiny structure called the pineal