...Phineas Gage Paper Stacy M Fender psy/360 July 14 2014 Brenda Edmons Phineas Gage Paper September 13, 18348 a man by the name of Phineas Gage was in a terrible railway construction accident. Phineas was in the town of Cavendish in the state of Vermont; he was tampering iron; these are around three feet long. Buy the chance the iron was fired, and it went through his head, after a CT scan which was cutting edge technology in its time, this showed the iron had gone through his cranium, destruction of his left frontal lobe. Even though he had a painful mishap, Phineas Gage made a remarkable improvement; he was alive for 12 years. He moved to San Francisco, and on the date of May 21, 1860 he died of epilepsy difficulties. The brain has been studied for many years by researchers trying to find the role cognitive functions play in the brain. Phineas was given the diagnosis of traumatic brain injury also known as TBI; this gives comprehension of how TBI's shape cognitive functions. It’s unfortunate that Phineas went through his tragic accident, but it did help researchers find the crucial knowledge of the brain and the areas that show proof of cognitive functions and how traumatic brain injury (TBI) happens. A person's cognitive abilities can foresee functional aftermath after a TBI (traumatic brain injury). The degree of concurrent rational abilities influences the significance of the functional renewal. The changes of a person's social, emotional, and behavioral functioning...
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...2011 Patricia Adesso Phineas Gage The brain is most complex of all of the organs in the body. The brain is the place where emotions, perception, planning, memory, action, thinking, learning and language, among other things, all take place. Cognitive functioning takes place in the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain and is carried out by neurons. The brain is made up of thousands of neurons that are responsible for carrying messages from the brain and into the body. These neurons interact with one another by releasing a neurotransmitter that fits on to the receptor of a neighboring neuron. When the receptor is triggered in the brain it causes the body to react, act, think, feel, learn and so forth. But how does this actually work? Brain imaging has given us some insight to answer this question. Brain imaging like MRI’s, CAT, and PET scans all help in discovering the brains role in cognitive functioning. Advances in imaging technology have helped researchers pin point which areas of the brain are responsible for thinking, learning and memory. By recording activity of the brain in action, researchers can examine the systems of brain regions that participate in different cognitive functions, ranging from basic sensory and motor functions to complex functions like reasoning and language understanding. According to the Center for Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) at the University of Pittsburg “To discover how brain cells actually support cognitive processes, CNBC investigators...
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...Phineas Gage PSY/360 Abstract In 1848, there was a railroad worker named Phineas Gage, who was severely injured on the job. In this essay, the author will discuss the details of the accident and what it revealed about how the different areas of the human brain support cognitive function. I will also discuss the characteristics of primary memory, the process of memory from perception and retrieval and the unreliability of memory retrieval. Phineas Gage Phineas gage is known as one of the most famous documented cases of brain injury. This brain injury occurred on September 13th, 1848 while Gage was working on the railroad excavating rocks with a tampering rod in the State of Vermont. An explosion occurred on the job-site that caused a tampering rod propelled at an extremely high speed to enter and penetrate Gage’s skull. This tampering rod entered his skull under his left cheek bone and exited through the top of his head; it was later recovered with bits of brain matter and blood on it. The amazing thing is that throughout this horrific accident, Mr. Gage never lost consciousness, in fact, by January of the following year; he had started to live a normal life. However, it was noted that around this time, Mr. Gage was considered to be suffering from some major changes in his personality. What Phineas Gage’s Accident Reveals about Cognitive Functions “Cognition refers to the higher order functions that are needed for learning and interacting with a person's environment...
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...PSY/360 April 15, 2012 Stacy Page Introduction The human brain has numerous functions that include coordination of body functions, reasoning ability, and cognition. In order for human beings to carry out their day to day activities, it is critically essential that the brain functions normally. Cognition is one of the most important aspects of psychology and it refers to the various mental processes. Prior to Phineas Gage’s famous accident in 1848, neuroscientists strongly believed that the brain’s role in cognitive functioning was minimal. (Scheffer, 2005)However, after the extensive research that was inspired by his accident, this perception changed and presently, the role of brain in cognitive functions cannot be underrated. Overview of Phineas Gage Accident Working for a big construction company in the year 1848, Phineas Gage was skilled in performing numerous tasks in any construction site. He had even been entrusted by his employees as a foreman in the construction site as a result of his experience and illustrious character. On that fateful day while working on a construction project in Vermont, Phineas Gage sustained a horrific injury to his brain when a huge metallic rod accidentally penetrated through his skull. (Fleischman, 2004) The magnitude of the damage caused by this injury was there for all to see; the metallic rod had left a gaping hole in Gage’s skull. Amazingly, Phineas Gage survived the accident. However, this injury completed changed his personality...
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...The Role of the Brain in Cognitive Functions Science unrolls and unravels the many functions of the brain through research, inference, experiments and actual real life occurrences. Such was the case of Phineas Gage (1823 – 1860), a young foreman on the railroad in the mid 1800’s who survived a blasting accident which destroyed a part of his brain. Documentation on Mr. Gage’s health and personality before and after the accident opened the door to the role of the brain in cognitive functions. Phineas Gage’s accident and apparent recovery precipitated the idea that there was a connection between the human brain and the personality. First, prior to Mr. Gage’s phenomenal recovery from the loss of a substantial part of his brain, scientists believed that the brain was an entire “organ”, and that all of it was needed to function at all. The incidence with Phineas’ recovery and his continual capability to function altered scientific thinking substantially. Secondly, the adaptation that he made in his personality opened further doors for studying the cognitive adaptability of the brain. According to friends and collegues, Gage was no longer Gage. Once a friendly and affable, easy to get along with individual, he became stubborn, argumentative and forgetful, unable to organize his life in a reasonable manner. He could no longer hold down a job. Phineas Gage died 12 years after a rod pierced his skull and permanently damaged his frontal cortex. The scientific studies that...
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...things, all take place. Cognitive functioning takes place in the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain and is carried out by neurons. The brain is made up of thousands of neurons that are responsible for carrying messages from the brain and into the body. These neurons interact with one another by releasing a neurotransmitter that fits on to the receptor of a neighboring neuron. When the receptor is triggered in the brain it causes the body to react, act, think, feel, learn and so forth. But how does this actually work? Brain imaging has given us some insight to answer this question. Brain imaging like MRI’s, CAT, and PET scans all help in discovering the brains role in cognitive functioning. Advances in imaging technology have helped researchers pin point which areas of the brain are responsible for thinking, learning and memory. By recording activity of the brain in action, researchers can examine the systems of brain regions that participate in different cognitive functions, ranging from basic sensory and motor functions to complex functions like reasoning and language understanding. According to the Center for Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) at the University of Pittsburg “To discover how brain cells actually support cognitive processes, CNBC investigators use physiological studies of neuronal activity in animals. Such studies have uncovered neurons that encode basic sensory properties of stimuli as well as others that reflect deeper cognitive analyses, such as the relative...
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...Phineas Gage Paper Cognitive Functions Cognitive functions are the encompassed reasoning, memory, attention, and language that lead directly to the attainment of information humans attain daily. We use cognitive functions daily from the time we wake up and become aware of not only that we have woken up but also if it is light outside or dark, the time it is, and also we perceive what needs to happen next such as if we should begin our day or if we should continue to sleep. The role of the brain in cognitive functions is to allow us to work with information, apply the information, and perform any tasks need to be done using the information we have acquired. Without our cognitive functions, we would not be able to make decisions, or remember any information that we would need to function in normal daily life. Cognitive functions derive from what we store as memory and experience daily, as well as the ability to transfer what we learn from one experience to another situation. But what would happen if we suddenly lost part of our cognitive functons? Phineas Gage Phineas P. Gage was a 25 year old man that was impaled though this skull with an iron bar while working on a railroad in September 13, 1848. Phineas had just drilled a hole into a rock face to set some blasting powder. However, Phineas missed a step in the positioning of the blasting powder and as the tamping iron struck the rock a spark ignited the blasting powder sending the tamping iron, sharp end first...
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...Phineas Cage Paper Daunique Irvin Psych 360 3/21/2013 Dr. Gayle Ball-Parker “The cognitive perspective focuses on the way people perceive, process, and retrieve information” (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). Cognitive psychologists are interested in how memory functions, how people solve problems and make decisions, and similar questions. Cognitive function would include any and all characteristics of an individual ’s perception, such as, sensing, reasoning, conception, imagining and remembering (Willingham, 2007). Different areas of the brain serve different cognitive functions. The thalamus is a relay station for sensory and motor information. For all senses except smell, the receptors first send information to the thalamus, which passes it on to the cortex. The Amygdala is believed to be important in the processing of emotion and probably information about social functions. Hippocampus is important in memory. The cerebellum is important in motor control (Willingham, 2007). Phineas Gage worked on a railroad and had an accident on September 13, 1848 where an explosion caused an iron from the railroad to penetrate straight through the frontal part and on the left region of 25 year old, Phineas Gage’s head (Van Horn, Irima, Togerson, Chambers, Kikinis, & Toya, 2012). A iron rod shot upwards, through the left cheek of Gage, passing behind his left eyeball, piercing his cranial vault under the left basal forebrain, passing through his brain, and then...
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...Phineas Gage Paper PSY360 Cognitive Psychology Bobbi G. Rice November 21, 2010 Diana Keys Phineas Gage Paper Phineas P Gage was a railway construction workman who, in 1848, received a devastating penetrating head injury. A 4 ft long tamping iron was fired by accident through his skull destroying both frontal lobes. He survived the accident by chance, the care he received from colleagues at the scene and through medical care received from doctors (Grieve, 2010). Gage remained conscious on the way to the local physician. Upon arrival, Dr. Harlow, the attending physician, bandaged his wounds, which continued to bleed for another 2 days. Gage showed no obvious, immediate mental discrepancies, but an aggressive viral infection set in at the damaged area which led to a month of semiconscious recovery. Once infection finally subsided, Gage made a complete recovery, except for blindness in his left eye and weakness in the left side of his face. Upon his returning to work it became quite evident that Mr. Gage was not entirely himself. The damage to Gage’s brain was located in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex; but, in order to understand the personality changes that Gage underwent after his recovery it is necessary to first examine the underlying neurological and cognitive interplay thereof. “The higher cognitive functions, working memory, mental imagery, and willed action, are all intimately associated with consciousness” (Frith & R, 1996, ). Perception, attention...
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...The Brain and Cognitive Functions Centuries of philosophy and science have been dedicated to unraveling the mystery behind how cognition occurs, how it maps to areas of the brain, and to what degree cognition is dependant upon these various areas in which cognitive activities are located. Modern neuroscience has helped tremendously to provide some answers as have tests on brain trama patients such as Phineas Gage which revealed startling changes in individual behavior that can be linked to damage in specific areas of the brain. Even though studies continue to discover new information, there is strong evidence to support the premise that specific areas of the brain are dedicated to certain cognitive functions. Phineas Gage was an upstanding citizen that lived Cavendish, Vermont in the mid-1800's. Phineas worked as a railroad crew foreman and was considered by his employer to be a highly reliable, responsible man with morals, and a true model citizen. However, an accident that occurred in 1848 drove an iron pole called a tamping iron, through Phineas left cheek and out the top of his skull. According to reports, Phineas was able to get help from a physician, John Martyn Harlow, with whom Phineas carried on a discussion even during the initial treatments. John Martyn Harlow continued to treat Phineas for months after the accident and recorded the substantial changes in Phineas behavior that occurred during that time. It was a significant discovery in modern medicine and some...
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...Phineas Gage and the Cognitive Function The introduction of this paper includes Phineas Gage and the position of cognitive brain functions. The narrative of Phineas Gage can be and will be examined and the clarification of cognitive functioning in regard to his condition is vital and is part the main topic of this paper. The cognitive brain functions are examined in this paper as well. Cognitive function is when a person uses his or her mental processes to educate, find purpose, find solutions, find choices, and comprehend to then understand. When you can bring your attention to remembering events you’re more likely to focus. In lacking cognitive processing we, as humans would not be able to properly function. We use these daily processes to tackle life events, work, home, and all other task that tie into cognitive process but we must first scrutinize what the brain is made of, its structures, and the ability to see the brain create a variety of cognitions. The brain has created a set of structures named the limbic system. The structure is made up of the cerebrum, hippocampus, diencephalon, midbrain, anterior thalamic nuclei, amygdalae, septum, limbic cortex, and the fornix. This structure or system assists in the functions of behavior, inspiration, and memory. The brain’s cognitive function is tied to four lobes of the brain, which are very vital. The cognitive processing remains in the cortex of the brain. In order to understand the correlation of the brain and its functionality...
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...Phineas Gage Paper The Brain an amazing structure it is designed to multitask on a continual basis. The human brain weighting three pounds, and having the ability to give life as well as learn and move throughout life is amazing. Each part of the brain controls specific actions. Understanding, and recognize where the actions are coming from will give understanding on how the human mind works and understanding how we learn. ( WEBSITE) Cognitive Brain functions Cognitive functions can consist of problem solving, speaking, and learning as well as retaining memory and expressing and feeling emotions. Cognitive functions originate in the part of the brain called cerebrum also known as the cerebral cortex this takes up majority of the brains mass. The cerebral cortex is made up of four lobes which consist of frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, and the occipital lobe. Each lobe has a task and serves a cognitive function to the brain. Some task such as speaking and learning require coordinated processing from multiple areas of the cerebrum (Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/about_5386858_normal-brain-functions.html). Frontal lobe This lobe can be found in the front of the brain, and this is the center for emotions and personality. Motor speech and behavior and critical thinking are centered in the frontal lobe. Problem solving, reasoning, planning, memory, language, judgment control of impulses, and social and sexual behavior as well are managed by frontal lobe (Retrieved...
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...Phineas Gage Paper The brain is one of the key role players in cognitive functioning. There are many different areas in the brain but only a few certain areas have an influence on cognitive functioning. A man named Phineas Gage showed the key elements in the specific areas in the brain that do support these cognitive functions. In 1848 Phineas gage suffered a traumatic brain injury which has aided in understanding the human brain in the fields of cognitive and neuropsychologists. This paper will help to better explain the role of cognitive functioning and the brain. One will better understand the importance of Phineas Gage’s injuries and how they have helped to aid cognitive functioning and neuropsychology. The Brain and Cognitive Functioning The brain plays and important role in cognitive functioning. The ability to process thoughts and information is cognitive functioning (Willingham, 2007). Learning, memory, and perception are all examples of cognitive functioning (Willingham, 2007). Different areas of the brain support different cognitive functions. The amygdala, hippocampus, and the rhinal cortex are all responsible for memory. Emotional memory and memories which are prompted by emotional behavior are all stored in the amygdala. The hippocampus is responsible for receiving information from the senses and then translating them into an individual’s short-term memory. Learned information is recalled from the rhinal cortex. “The cerebral cortex is what is studied, photographed...
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...Phineas Gage was a foreman for the construction crew on the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in Cavendish, Virginia. He was working on the railroad using a tamping iron to press an explosive powder into a rock. This was a normal practice for blasting away rock during the middle 1800’s. While Phineas was tamping the rod down into the rock, the iron hit part of the rock and sparked, thus igniting the powder inside the rock. This caused a blast that projected the iron rod into his left cheek and brain, then coming out the top of his skull. This did not kill him; it did not even seem to have affected his brain in a major way at first. Phineas developed an infection that had him in and out of consciousness for two months, was blind in his left eye and experienced weakness in the left side of his face. Only when he returned to work did his coworkers see the change in his personality. (Wickens, 2005). This led people to study his case and do further research on neurological and cognitive studies about how his brain was affected by this accident. The initial thought that Gage was unaffected by this accident proved to be wrong. The physician, Dr. Harlow, that tended to Gage immediately after his incident hinted that while he did not seem to be affected intellectually, he had observed changes in his personality (Kihlstrom, 2010). This shows that neuroscience and social psychology both play a role in figuring out what ails the brain as well as the person. This is where...
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...Phineas Gage Megan Libey PSY 360 Melissa Jackson Phineas Gage Phineas Gage was a foreman working for the railroad in Vermont. In those days blasting holes was the normal procedure to gain access to lay the railroad down. Gage was using tamping powder to drill holes with a tamping iron. He would use the iron to pack the powder in holes and suddenly there was an explosion which led the tamping iron which was now protruding from left cheek and part of the brain and hanging out from his skull (Twomey, 2010). He had everyone one of his co-workers looking at him in amazement since he never loss consciousness. The Doctor that examined Gage was amazed as well and cleaned and bandages his wounds. Phineas Gage was a well mannered person, who enjoyed working before the accident, but afterwards a vicious viral infection had done the toll and recovery was long and hard. Gage was recovering well physically, but the infection had robbed him of sight in his left eye and decreased sensation on his left face. Gage did return to laying down tracks for the railroad but everyone who knew him saw he was a changed man (Wagar, 2004). Cognition Functions with Phineas Gage Antonio Damaiso showed research based on somatic-marker hypothesis in Phineas Gage that allowed people to understand that patients with frontal lobe damage was evidence that brain’s regions for making decisions are strongly connected to emotional centers (Barnes & Thagard). Somatic markers can help pinpoint...
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