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Phineas Gage

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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 cognitive psychology comes into play because it allows not only the study of the brain, but also incorporates the social aspect into it. Doctors found that it was the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) that was damaged. Later, Phineas Gage’s skull was reconstructed using neuroimaging by Dr. Damasio, who was familiar with these types of damages. While this showed that both of

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