Elsevier

Revue Neurologique

Abstruse No. 4

Phineas Cuff: The brain and the behavior

Phineas Gage has long occupied a privileged position in the history of science. Few isolated cases have been as influential, in the neurological and neuroscientific thinking, and yet the documentation on which conclusions and interpretations residuum are remarkably incomplete [ane], [2]. We do have a number of sure facts:

– Gage did suffer a well-described accident, which resulted in major damage to his skull and brain;

– nosotros do know that after the accident his personality underwent a major modify and that his reliability was compromised;

– we exercise accept his actual, damaged, skull every bit well every bit the weapon that traversed it, both preserved as museum artifacts.

By undertaking a directly assay of the skull and taking direct advantage of novel neuroimaging techniques, we took a new look at the Cuff example [3]. After analyzing, measuring and photographing the skull at the museum of the Harvard Medical School, nosotros modeled a restricted number of trajectories for the weapon and for the respective sites of encephalon injury. We were then able to interpret aspects of Gage's behavior that were credibly compromised in the setting of Cuff'south presumed lesions.

The confidence we were able to place on these interpretations depended on the fact that nosotros had extensive experience with the systematic written report of brain lesions and their consequences — namely with frontal lobe lesions — in cases that were well documented neuroanatomically and neuropsychologically and were even included in neuropsychological experiments. Our goal, nigh a quarter of a century ago, was to add a chapter to the Cuff history and enrich this historical instance with the benefits of modern techniques and theoretical advances. We did non intend to use Phineas Cuff to advance knowledge in neuroscience, rather we used advances in neuroscience to complete the study that Harlow had evidently intended to author near Phineas Gage.

Interest in the Gage instance has not waned, and two additional studies are worth mentioning. Of involvement, in 2004, Ratiu et al. [four] replicated our findings and suggested that the Cuff lesion was probably confined to the left hemisphere, something entirely compatible with our views but that, on the ground of our own data, we could not conclude with confidence. In 2012, all the same another research grouping addressed the likely disruption of white matter tracks in relation to cortical networks [five].

I program to discuss these results in light of current knowledge of frontal lobe dysfunction.

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Disclosure of involvement

The author declares that she has no competing interest.

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