Visual records of the Phineas Gage case feature a photograph of Gage holding the metal tamping iron that caused his traumatic brain injury, alongside a medical illustration demonstrating the rod's trajectory as it entered through his cheek and exited through the top of his skull.

Case Study of Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage, a 25-year-old railroad foreman in 1848, is one of the most renowned cases in neuroscience. He suffered a severe brain injury when an explosion drove a tamping iron through his face and skull, damaging his frontal lobe. Miraculously, Gage survived the accident, remaining conscious and able to walk and speak immediately after. However, in the following months, he underwent a profound personality transformation. Previously known as a well-mannered man, he began to exhibit strange and inappropriate behavior. This shift in personality is attributed to a loss of impulse control, a key function managed by the frontal lobe.

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* Phineas Gage 
* Henry Molaison (H.M.)
* John Nash
* Clive Wearing
* James Wannerton

Influential Case Studies in Brain Function and Behavior

* Henry Molaison (H.M.)
* Kent Cochrane (K.C.)
* Scott Bolzan
* Phineas Gage

Case Studies for Disorders of Memory

Located at the front of the brain and extending back to the central sulcus. It receives signals from all senses in order to coordinate them. Also involved in reasoning, motor control, emotion, language, and higher cognitive functions such as thinking, speech and problem solving.
It contains Broca's area, the Prefrontal Cortex, and the Motor Cortex.

Frontal Lobe

The extensive study of individuals with brain damage has been a primary method for gathering information about the functional roles of different areas of the brain.

Studying Brain Damage to Understand Brain Function

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Phineas Gage

John Nash was a brilliant mathematician, Nobel Prize winner, and the subject of the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind. During his time as a professor at MIT, he began to hear voices, grew suspicious of those around him, and believed the New York Times contained coded messages from extraterrestrial beings meant for him. These experiences led to a diagnosis of schizophrenia and admission to a state-run mental institution.

Case Study of John Nash

Clive Wearing was a highly skilled musician who suffered severe damage to his hippocampus due to an illness. As a direct consequence of this brain injury, he completely lost the capacity to encode and retain any new memories, illustrating the critical role of the hippocampus in memory formation.

Case Study of Clive Wearing

James Wannerton is an individual who experiences a unique sensory connection where the sound of words is associated with specific taste sensations. For example, he perceives the name of his former girlfriend as tasting like rhubarb.

James Wannerton

Henry Molaison (H.M.) is one of psychology's most famous case studies. In 1953, surgeons removed large sections of his hippocampus to treat severe epilepsy. While the surgery successfully stopped his seizures without affecting his IQ or personality, it left him with anterograde amnesia. His short-term memory remained intact, but he permanently lost the ability to transfer new information into long-term memory—a process known as consolidation. This case was crucial for memory research because it demonstrated a clear dissociation between short-term and long-term memory and highlighted the temporal lobes' essential role in memory consolidation.

Case of Henry Molaison (H.M.)

After a severe concussion, the former NFL player became one of the most extreme cases of retrograde amnesia. After the injury, Scott was unable to remember 46 years of his life.

Scott Bolzan

Kent Cochrane, known as patient K.C., was studied for years by Endel Tulving after a motorcycle accident caused a traumatic head injury and severe amnesia. K.C.'s case was remarkable for his complete episodic amnesia, meaning he was unable to recall any personal life events from his entire life, from birth to the present. However, his memory for experiences within the most recent one to two minutes remained functional.

Kent Cochrane (K.C.)

Contained in the left hemisphere of the frontal lobe of the brain and specialized in producing speech. People with damage to Broca's area can't speak fluently.

Broca's Area

A part of the frontal lobe that is responsible for higher-level cognitive functioning and focuses on "in the moment" or rash behavior (decision-making, problem solving, and so on). This area is also responsible for the development of personality. The PFC has a handful of (not universally agreed upon) subdivisions:

- Dorsomedial
- Dorsolateral
- Ventromedial
- Ventrolateral
- Orbitofrontal

Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

The left hemisphere deals with working memory, concentration, executive planning, and positive emotions. 

Left Hemisphere of Frontal Lobe

The right hemisphere of the frontal lobe is involved in several cognitive functions, including episodic memory, social awareness, and the retrieval of information. It also contains the primary motor centers that control voluntary movement on the left side of the body, meaning damage to this area can lead to motor impairment on the contralateral side.

Right Hemisphere of Frontal Lobe

The following areas of brain lobes can be considered when implementing neurofeedback:

- Parietal lobes
- Frontal lobes
- Temporal lobes
- Occipital lobes
- Sensorimotor cortex
- Cingulate gyrus
- Broca's area
- Left hemisphere
- Right hemisphere

Brain Lobe Considerations When Using Neurofeedback

The motor cortex is the part of the frontal lobe which is involved in planning and coordinating movement.

Motor Cortex

The medical condition of brain death, where an individual's brain function has ceased but their body is sustained by medical equipment, creates intricate ethical problems. These dilemmas involve complex decisions about appropriate medical responses, such as determining who has the authority to remove a feeding tube or discontinue life support. Resolving these issues requires weighing conflicting factors like patient wishes, family desires, state laws, hospital policies, and the potential impact of medical care costs.

Ethical Dilemmas Concerning Brain Death and Life Support

A patient suffers an injury to a specific, localized area of the brain. Following the injury, the patient's vision remains sharp, and they can identify everyday objects without difficulty. However, they are completely unable to recognize the faces of their closest relatives or even their own face in a mirror. Based *only* on this evidence, what is the most logical inference about the function of the damaged brain area?

Strokes, which result from an interruption of blood flow to a part of the brain, cause a localized loss of brain function. By studying the specific behavioral changes or deficits that follow a localized stroke, researchers are able to link those functional impairments directly to the damaged region, thereby identifying the normal role of that specific brain area.

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