What I would like you to do is to find a topic from this week's chapter that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find a video clip that demonstrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. Please use at least 3 quality resources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would like you to say what your topic is, b) how exactly it fits into the chapter, and c) why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
By integrating/synthesizing I mean to take what your read/experienced from the internet search organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using that information. This is hard for some people to do - many students write what we refer to as "serial abstracts." They are tempted to talk about the websites rather than the topic proper and this what you DON'T want to do! They will talk all about website #1, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #2, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #3, and then write some kind of conclusion. Serial means one after the other...again, this what you DON'T want to do! Also if all three sites are on the same one topic it will be easier.
At first it is a real challenge to get out of the habit of writing "serial abstracts," but I assure you once you get the hang of it it is much easier to write using the integration method. And besides this is the way researchers and scientists write their technical reports and findings - many of you will have to be able to do this for other classes and for jobs that you may eventually be hired for so now is a good time to learn this skill. At this point don't worry about a grade, worry about doing your best to have fun with the topic and then integrate it into your own words to share what you found and now know. We will work on citing the sources later....
Additional instructions: For each URL (internet resource) you have listed. Indicate why you chose it and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
After reading this chapter the topic that most interested me was the section on Phrenology. Phrenology ties into this chapter because the chapter was all about the brain, how it works, etc. Phrenology deals with "reading" the brain per say, and how the dents and lines on our skull effect our brain and how it works. It struck my interest because I thought it was neat how a person discovered that an individuals "imperfections" or mental problems could be discovered by having their skull examined.
Phrenology focuses on the measurement of the human skull, it is based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind. A distinguishing feature of Phrenology is the idea that the size of the various brain areas were very meaningful and could be inferred by looking more indepth at the skull of the patient. It also says that certain brain areas have specific functions they preform as well. Phrenology also helped explain human behavior, it presented the idea that behavior was due to neurology rahter than religiousity or philosophy.
Phrenology was first pegged by a man with the last name of Gall, and was very popular in the nineteenth century. He discovered a direct link between the formation of the skull and the character and mannerisms of a certain individual. He was the first to consider the brain the center of all mental activities, and said that the formation of the head represents the form of the brain and its functions. He also said that an individuals strengths and weaknesses could be determined by examining a persons head.
This is a very interesting topic to me. I think its fascinating that he discovered an individuals brain and organ could be read by examining their skull. Also, he first pegged that the brain had something to do with how a person acts. This is a great discovery as well, way to go Gall.
http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
http://www.neurosurgery.org/cybermuseum/pre20th/phren/phrenology.html
http://www.phrenology.com/franzjosephgall.html
After reading this chapter the topic that most interested me was the section on Phrenology. Phrenology ties into this chapter because the chapter was all about the brain, how it works, etc. Phrenology deals with "reading" the brain per say, and how the dents and lines on our skull effect our brain and how it works. It struck my interest because I thought it was neat how a person discovered that an individuals "imperfections" or mental problems could be discovered by having their skull examined.
Phrenology focuses on the measurement of the human skull, it is based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind. A distinguishing feature of Phrenology is the idea that the size of the various brain areas were very meaningful and could be inferred by looking more indepth at the skull of the patient. It also says that certain brain areas have specific functions they preform as well. Phrenology also helped explain human behavior, it presented the idea that behavior was due to neurology rahter than religiousity or philosophy.
Phrenology was first pegged by a man with the last name of Gall, and was very popular in the nineteenth century. He discovered a direct link between the formation of the skull and the character and mannerisms of a certain individual. He was the first to consider the brain the center of all mental activities, and said that the formation of the head represents the form of the brain and its functions. He also said that an individuals strengths and weaknesses could be determined by examining a persons head.
This is a very interesting topic to me. I think its fascinating that he discovered an individuals brain and organ could be read by examining their skull. Also, he first pegged that the brain had something to do with how a person acts. This is a great discovery as well, way to go Gall.
http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
http://www.neurosurgery.org/cybermuseum/pre20th/phren/phrenology.html
http://www.phrenology.com/franzjosephgall.html
After reading this chapter the topic that most interested me was the section on Phrenology. Phrenology ties into this chapter because the chapter was all about the brain, how it works, etc. Phrenology deals with "reading" the brain per say, and how the dents and lines on our skull effect our brain and how it works. It struck my interest because I thought it was neat how a person discovered that an individuals "imperfections" or mental problems could be discovered by having their skull examined.
Phrenology focuses on the measurement of the human skull, it is based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind. A distinguishing feature of Phrenology is the idea that the size of the various brain areas were very meaningful and could be inferred by looking more indepth at the skull of the patient. It also says that certain brain areas have specific functions they preform as well. Phrenology also helped explain human behavior, it presented the idea that behavior was due to neurology rahter than religiousity or philosophy.
Phrenology was first pegged by a man with the last name of Gall, and was very popular in the nineteenth century. He discovered a direct link between the formation of the skull and the character and mannerisms of a certain individual. He was the first to consider the brain the center of all mental activities, and said that the formation of the head represents the form of the brain and its functions. He also said that an individuals strengths and weaknesses could be determined by examining a persons head.
This is a very interesting topic to me. I think its fascinating that he discovered an individuals brain and organ could be read by examining their skull. Also, he first pegged that the brain had something to do with how a person acts. This is a great discovery as well, way to go Gall.
http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
http://www.neurosurgery.org/cybermuseum/pre20th/phren/phrenology.html
http://www.phrenology.com/franzjosephgall.html
Although there were many interesting topics in chapter three, the one that interested me the most was phrenology. I had never heard of this science before and after reading about it on Tuesday, and talking about in class today I wanted to learn more because it seems like such a made up pseudoscience I can’t fathom how anyone could ever believe it.
In the chapter we learned about the origins of this science coming from a Viennese physician/anatomist by the name of Franz Josef Gall. At first many rejected his practice because they thought it was immortal and promoting atheism, and also they did not agree that he should be charging admission. Later on, when he took his practice on the road people started having a greater appreciation for his work. Gall used his knowledge of the anatomy of the brain and turned it into a type of mind reading where he would study the relationship between one’s character and the shape of their skull.
In Gall’s main work: The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular, he makes several statements pertaining to his practice. A few points I found interesting in this piece of work were: First he says that moral and intellectual faculties are natural to an individual, next he says that the brain is the organ where our behaviors, opinions, and talents come from, and last that the form of one’s head represents the shape of their brain and reflects the development of their brain organs. He also believed that each organ functioned based off of a certain mental faculty, and the shape and size depended on one’s development and could reflect what kind of person they were. A few examples of the types of traits Gall thought he could read include: perseverance, kindness, comparison, self-esteem, concentration, cautiousness, secretiveness, appetite, size, weight, language, individuality, memory, love, and many more.
Although at first Gall received criticism from strict religious people he gained support from scientists and political figures who were also working in rational ways. Eventually, as could be expected, the science of phrenology was disproved by a man named Flourens who used ablation to localize regions of the brain and their observed effects and phrenology. Despite this, some aspects of this science were still used throughout history like in the late 19th century/early 20th century scientists compared human heads, cranium size, and forehead shape to prove that Europeans were superior to other humans. Also some aspects underlying the main ideas of this science have been explored more in detail and proven true showing that phrenology wasn’t all that far off some examples being: human personality and functioning can both be localized in different regions of the brain, areas of the brain that are most frequently used can increase in size, and last with modern brain imaging devices we can localize functions accurately rather than just guessing like Gall did.
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n01/frenolog/frenologia.htm
http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2004/phrenology.htm
htto://pages.britishlibrary.net/phrenology/overview.htm
The topic I chose to do more research on is Phineas Gage. Phineas Gage’s story fits in the chapter because while looking into his accident, we found that personality is affected by the brains frontal lobes.
Phineas Gage was working on a railroad and was filling holes with dynamite. In doing this a spark was made and a tampering iron, a long rod, fly up though Gage’s skull. The tampering iron entered his skull just under his left eye and exited though the top of his head. Once ejected, the tampering iron was found 30 yards away from the accident with both blood and brain on it. After gage was struck, he was momentarily disoriented but was still alive! Gage was able to make it to a local physician, John Martin Harlow, who patched Gage’s skull with adhesive straps. No surgery was done and the wound was left to drain into the bandages. Days after the accident, his wounds became infected and Gage was semi-comatose. His family did not think he would like so they had a coffin ready for him but yet again, Gage pulled through and lived twelve year longer.
After the accident, Gage’s personality changed. His close friends and family described him as “no longer Gage.” In the Bulletin of the Massachusetts Medical Society Gage’s personality change was described as, “His contractors, who regarded him as the most efficient and capable foreman in their employ previous to his injury, considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint of advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinent, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operation, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible. In this regard, his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was "no longer Gage".
This insight to Gage’s new personality paved the way in the discovery that parts on the brain are relevant to one’s personality. “The damage to Gage’s frontal cortex had resulted in a complete loss of social inhibitions, which often led to inappropriate behavior.”
http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/the-incredible-case-of-phineas-gage/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/nov/05/phineas-gage-head-personality
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html?c=y&page=1
The topic that got me thinking the most and the most interesting was on the age of enlightenment. I kept thinking how this would be an extremely exciting period of time for everyone. With all the new theories and thoughts, what was thought to be common knowledge was being changed. This period interests me so much because these men laid the framework for a lot of research that was conducted after they had all passed away. It really fits into this chapter because it goes on to go into detail on a lot of men that lived and worked in this time period. They were all very curious and very bright individuals. There curiosity is part of the reason we have some of the ideas and theories that we do now.
One of the main goals of these men was to obtain knowledge through experiments and theories other than religious authorities. This is one of the reasons I was very interested in this time period. A majority of people and all of the churches had to of been very scared about the work these men were doing. Some of the theories they came up with went against everything that the church stood for. It counterdicted many of the so called facts that the church was spreading. I can imagine they were not met with great optimism. That had to be frustrating because these men had to be so enthusiastic about what they were doing. Each of them had to have very good character and great restrain.
This period is also referred to as the age of reason, and rightfully so. The age contained great works of art and literature. People were really beginning to express themselves and were not afraid of being judged. I just find this period to be full of history and great works of the mind. The period contributed so much to some of the areas that still exist today, such as the inter workings of the nervous system. These men may not of been completely right but they took the step to not accept what they were told, but to instead learn by using the scientific method. The literature of this time represents the great strides made in science and other areas. The name really fits the period because they were moving away from the darkness and into the light of new knowledge.
http://history-world.org/age_of_enlightenment.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8iohPnq9go
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Age_of_Enlightenment
The topic I choice to talk about in more detail is that of Phineas Gage. Gage a once well-respected railroad worker became one of the most famous people in the mid-nineteenth century. This was in due part to an accident he experienced one day that left him a completely different man. An accident that ended with an iron rod being forced through his skill, from just under his left eye socket through to his top left forehead. Providing a perfect case study for a clinical method as well as the theory of localization of brain function known as phrenology. I choice this topic for I was interested in the progress made from phrenology to clinical methods and/or how the two were used hand in hand. Also how a detailed case, such as Gage’s doctor, was able to provide could lead to a better understanding of the brain for later generations. In this case it can also go to show how a qualitative report can be more beneficial than a quantitative report in the study.
When Gage was impaled by the iron rod it severed the link between his limbic system and frontal cortex. The emotional center of the brain (the limbic system) was severed from the frontal cortex which acts as a control center, limiting or restraining emotional impulses. With that link gone between the two the limbic system was free to fire emotional messages un-inhibited by the frontal cortex. Allowing Gage in response to the brain to blurt out anything and everything that he felt. Making him a completely different person all together, taking out of a passage his friends and coworkers said he was “no longer Gage.” If we took Gall’s theory of phrenology and applied it to Gage, checking his faculties we would have probably defined areas of the his brain such as: comparison, human nature, causality, agreeableness, and maybe language to be impaired or lost. As we were able to see through documentation, Gage was still able to speak and to some degree perform the other functions. It wasn't until twelve years later that severe convulsions caused his death.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPAqTP7058Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QXI_BxlY7M
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/phineas-gage.htm
The topic that I found the most interesting from this chapter would have to have been the Bell-Magendie Law that has to do with when two scientists make the same discovery around the same time while not knowing of the other scientists’ past research. This subject fits into this chapter because it is in the section that has to do with nerve function and is a good example of co-discoveries in science. This law covers the findings by Francois Magendie and Sir Charles Bell when they found out nearly simultaneously that the posterior roots of the spinal cord control sensation, while the anterior roots controlled motor responses. Bell had published his findings on this nearly 11 years prior to Magendie’s but Magendie had no knowledge of his work. Bell was also wrong in this subject saying that the anterior and posterior roots both had sensory and motor functions while in fact only one had sensory and one had motor function. This is just a law that states an example of two discoveries being made in the same historical era.
One thing that was also interesting about this subject was that ether wasn’t invented yet for the surgeries of the animals. So in the experiment Bell didn’t put a total of three dogs under when he worked on cutting the anterior roots for the first, the posterior root for the second, and both roots for the third dog to finalize his point. The difference between Bell and Magendie here is that Bell was actually able to successfully clip the anterior root cleanly whereas Magendie only used speculation when he proved his points in his publication.
When Bell published his article he wasn’t very well known and was self-sponsored in his research whereas Magendie was a prominent English anatomist and had some pretty powerful friends to get his publications out. So you could see where it would be a little hard to believe that Bell came up with a good discovery when it was nearly impossible for him to get his work out to the world.
http://books.google.com/books?id=iZwXnfYAo3oC&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=bell-magendie+law+psychology&source=bl&ots=cAiJlgeFUn&sig=IHsrLbob7fDDl1gJ2H8CfC121II&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KT8UUZ2CG-XN2QXevYDADQ&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=bell-magendie%20law%20psychology&f=false
http://www.whonamedit.com/synd.cfm/2383.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%E2%80%93Magendie_law
As a child, I suffered from an unknown speech disorder. From kindergarten to 3rd grade, I had a speech pathologists, Mrs. Davis. I have never really thought anything of this, as I considered it a normal part of growing up, for most kids have "funny" accents. For this reason, I found the part on Broca's area and motor aphasia discussed in chapter 3 to be very interesting. The book defines motor aphrasia as "an inability to articulate ideas verbally, even though the vocal apparatus is intact and general intelligence is normal." Earlier, I said that my speed disorder was "unknown." By this, I mean that I do not recall the name of my specific disorder nor do my parents, I am sure the Mrs. Davis knew. For all of these reasons, I decided to look for more information about different speech disorders that are commonly found among children.
During my research, the word "apraxia" kept coming up often. Apraxia of speech effects roughly 10 children out of every 1,000. Although it can occur in adults, it is most common with children. A child with speech apraxia knows in their heard what they want to say. However, their brain lacks the function of being able to move certain muscles(i.e. face and jaw) in order to form the required word and/or sentences. As I researched, I saw similarities between my experience as a young scholar and those being discussed in research articles. For instance, as an example of this, I knew that my Aunt's name was Aunt Diane but when I said it, it came out as Aunt Naww-hee.
There is a wide range of possible causes for speech apraxia. In adults, their apraxia is acquired meaning that it resulted from a brain injury, by a stroke, accident, or what have you. On the other side, almost all children have developmental apraxia of speech and they are born with it. It is unknown why this occurs. Some believe that it is some kind of neurological imbalance while others believe that a particular child simply has a different patter of language development. Whatever the case, speech apraxia can be easily treated and is so every day.
Speech pathologists can be found at clinics, or most commonly, in a school setting, like my Mrs. Davis. In their office where they work children, they have many different techniques they use to help develop a child's language skills, and these techniques can be altered to the specific child. One common technique is known as "minimal pair intervention" where the speech pathologists would take two sounds and compare them to the child. Of the two sounds, one would be easily said by the child and the other would be one that the child struggles with. An example of this is the soft s sound being paired with the 'shhhh' sound. The pathologists would say sister and then shoe and have the child repeat it. If the child says 'soe' instead of shoe, the pathologists would probably say something like "lets make the woman quiet' giving the child a hint to use the "shh' sound. When I was going through this training, I only remember playing Guess Who many times. I loved it but at the time, I didn't get how I was learning anything. However, looking back, I realize that it was the repetition that was helpful and most necessary. Now, thanks to Mrs. Davis, I speak great!
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/pages/apraxia.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLuZdiX7Wrg
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071029133114.htm
After reading this chapter I was really interested in Phineas Gage. His story is amazing and psychologists will be talking about him forever. What I was more interested in was other people that have had an injury like him and what happened to them. I was curious if anything like that had happened in the more recent years and if they had the same personality changes that Gage had.
There actually are other people like him out there and one of those people is Eduardo Leite. Eduardo survived an accident that was a lot like Gage’s accident. Eduardo was a construction worker, and while on the job a 6 foot pole went through his frontal lobe in about the same way Gage’s did. Eduardo’s doctor thinks that he will make a full recovery and not that the issues with his personality that Gage did show. The pole that went through his skull fell from the fifth story of a building that his construction crew was working on. Other people believed that there could be side effects already happening because the incident doesn’t seem to be affecting him personally at all. Scientists say that the rod couldn’t have picked a better location to enter the brain because the spot where it hit was the non-dominant right frontal lobe.
It has also been found that Gage, even though given the title of first to survive, wasn’t in fact that first to go through this type of injury and live. Some cases that have been documents about people losing a portion of the brain and lived had to do with soldiers in war. One case was of a soldier who experienced left side hemiplegia which is where he lost feeling in the left side of the body, and he also lost some of his memory. Surprisingly this man actually had a full recovery and was able to serve in the army for twelve more years.
Another story about a soldier was that a piece of shrapnel that went through a fifteen year old soldier’s forehead. After removing all the pieces of shrapnel from the brain they said that there weren’t any symptoms saying that something was wrong. They would ask him questions to which he was able to answer. It took three months for the skull to heal since a bone measuring 21/2 x 11/4 inches was missing from the forehead and after it was all healed they reported that he was in great health.
It is fascinating to know that he isn’t the only person to have survived from what most would think to be a fatal injury.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/08/28/the-curious-case-of-phineas-gage-and-others-like-him/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/eduardo-leite-phineas-gage-pole-brain_n_1823502.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/eduardo-leite-survives-iron-bar-through-skull_n_1797497.html
I decided to do a bit of research on Lashley's principles of mass action and equipotentiality. I think the brain is the most fascinating part of a human because it quite literally contains who we are as individuals. Although it is one of the most fragile parts of the human body, its evolutionary adaptivity is unparalleled.
Lashley primarily conducted research on rats, specifically by making lesions on different parts of the rats' brains. He tested the rats' abilities to complete previously learned tasks, as well as their abilities learn new tasks after the operation.
Based on his research, Lashley came up with two theories about the brain. The first theory is the principle of mass action. This is the idea that the cortex works as a whole to perform higher-level processing tasks. Lashley's main piece of evidence for this was that no matter where on the cerebral cortex he made the lesion, the rats performed equally poorly on higher level tasks. He also found along with this that the higher level of functioning the task required, the more poorly the rats with lesions performed.
Lashley's second theory is the principle of equipotentiality. This is the ability of one area of the brain to take on the workload of another damaged area of the brain. This explains why Lashley found the following results in regards to visual processing tasks. After training rats to perform a visual task, Lashley damaged the rats' posterior cortex (around the occipital lobe), and found that those rats performed more poorly than rats with lesions to other parts of the cortex. This would be an argument in favor of visual localization, however the rats with lesions to the posterior cortex were able to relearn the task in the same amount of time that it took to learn in the first place. Lashley said that therefore the occipital lobe is important but not crucial to vision.
It is important to know that the principles of mass action and equipotentiality work hand in hand to make up brain plasticity. Because the whole cortex is integrated in complex reasoning tasks, the brain does not need to grow in size for every thought we have. We are able to conceive of things that we have never experienced before. Also, if a region gets damaged, the brain can, to a certain extent, substitute other areas to make up for the part that was damaged. These are very useful evolutionary tools that make the brain extremely versatile and relatively durable. With such a long evolutionary past, it just makes sense.
http://books.google.com/books?id=_GMeW9E1IB4C&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=lashley+mass+action&source=bl&ots=kmS1D_A0g1&sig=oe3NJGAKgP36-3L9h72TmjI_t1k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=b0EUUcWpE-mI2gWV-YDYDw&ved=0CF0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=lashley%20mass%20action&f=false
^This is an excerpt out of a book about some of Lashley's research. The author goes in depth with a couple of Lashley's studies, and explains equipotentiality and mass action very well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lashley
^This was basically a light read just to get some background on Lashley's work
http://www.psyc.bbk.ac.uk/research/DNL/personalpages/JCD0401-Thomas.pdf
^This was a very complicated article on the limits of brain plasticity, which counteracts some of pop culture's misconceptions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipotentiality
^I read this to get the gist of equipotentiality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Action_Principle_%28neuroscience%29
^I read this to get the gist of mass action
I chose the topic of ablation. It fits in this chapter with Flouren’s experimental approach to the problem of localization. He wanted to find out which parts of the brain controlled what. I want to learn more about what ablation does and what are some of the procedures you use it for. This topic interests me because just the fact that we cut out parts of people’s brain as treatment and people can still function normally fascinates me. The brain is such a mysterious organ and I would like to learn more about it and how we treat it.
The medical term for ablation is the removal of a part of biological tissue usually by surgery. Turns out there are many types of ablation. There is surface ablation like removing a mole. There is ablation therapy that uses radio frequency waves on the heart to cure cardiac arrhythmias. There is laser ablation in which a laser dissolves a material’s molecular bonds. Another type is rotoablation which cleans out arteries is the treatment of coronary heart disease. One other kind is bone marrow ablation to remove old bone marrow to make room for a transplant of new bone marrow. A recent type of ablation is genetic ablation. It is used to remove unwanted cells such as tumor cells. The last type if ablation of the brain tissue. It is used to treat neurological disorders. This is the type of ablation I am going to go into depth about.
Ablative brain surgery is also known as brain lessoning. It is the surgical lessoning of brain tissue by various methods to treat neurological or psychological disorders. It causes lesions in the brain that are irreversible. It was first introduced by Pierre Flourens (1774-1867), a French physiologist. He removed certain parts of the brain in animals and observed what effects were caused by the removal of those certain parts. For example if a part of the brain was removed and then the dog couldn’t walk any more it was assumed that that part of the brain controlled motor coordination. The term for this was experimental ablation. It was never done to humans because of the irreversible effects. This type of ablation is used to treat many disorders. One of them is Parkinson’s disease. It is the loss of dopaminergic cells of the substania nigra. Ablation is used second to deep brain stimulation to help with motor movements in patients. Another disorder ablative brain surgery helps is cluster headaches. If you ablate the trigeminal nerve it helps but has not been proven to effective. The last thing that ablative brain surgery helps is psychiatric disorders. It is rare but it has been known to help disorders such as schizophrenia, clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and epilepsy. It is used less now a days and is usually second to deep brain stimulation.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablative_brain_surgery
http://www.mayoclinic.org/ablation/types.html
According to the first article I read, Karl Lashley is known as the first psychologist of our time. As a neuropsychologist he liked to figure out how our brain and mind function. He was especially interested in animal behavior. This fascination led a young Lashley to take a course in Zoology. Lashley was influenced by professor neurologist John Black Johnston, who took him under his wings and taught him about zoology and comparative anatomy. His interest in psychology began after he earned a fellowship to John Hopkins University. There he majored in Zoology with two minors, one of which was with John B. Watson. Lashley was so impressed with Watson’s behavioral approach he would write decades later, “Anyone who knows American psychology today knows that its values derive from biology and from Watson.”
After earning his PhD, Lashley stayed at John Hopkins where he conducted experiments on actual people, studying color vision in birds, and conditioning of salivary reflex. Together Lashley and Watson studied the effects of strychnine and other drugs on the brain using rats as subjects. Lashley became interested in observing brain operations performed on monkeys, and learned the technique from Shepherd Ivory Franz. Through his studies of the cortex, Lashley made a big contribution to neuroanatomy. Over the years Lashley was involved with numerous scientific and philosophical societies including American Psychological Association, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Society of Genetics to just name a few. Lashley has earned many medals for his contributions and is respected by psychologist, zoologist, and physiologist.
According to the second site, Lashley was interested in how “engrams of memory traces” were being stored in the memory of the nervous system. He discovered rats could still guide themselves through the maze, even after missing a section of their brain. Through his rat studies Lashley concluded that memory is spread throughout the brain. He basically found out if one part of the brain is injured, another part of the brain will step up and help out with the functioning.
The third article was written by Karl Lashley, he explained how he was impressed with the nervous system and the complex mystery around it. Lashley was interested in the brain and behavior. “If we train an animal in a maze and observe carefully his subsequent errorless running, we find little identity of movement in successive trials. He gallops through in one trial, in another shuffles along, sniffing at the cover of the box. If we injure his cerebellum, he may roll through the maze. He follows the correct path with every variety of twist and posture, so that we cannot identify a single movement as characteristic of the habit.” Through his studies on the nervous system Lashley discovered that an injured brain still has the ability to continue functioning and can even relearn.
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/lashley-karl.pdf
http://www.intropsych.com/ch06_memory/lashleys_research.html
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Lashley/neural.htm
The topic that I found most interesting while reading chapter three was Phineas Gage. I liked that his accident lead to the discovery of so many things in psychology. So I decided to research what his accident did do to help psychologist and people in medical fields discover about the human brain. One of the articles that I read was about damage to the brocas area of the brain. Another one was about the effect that damage to the wernickes areas of the brain had on an individual. Lastly I took a deeper look into the story of Phineas Gage and found information that the book left out.
Broca's aphasia is very detrimental and only allows patients with it to sort utterances. The person may be able to read just as a normal person could, but their ability to writing would not be the same. It is often called non fluent aphasia because the person trouble and effortful attempt to speak. In the book Harlow was able to trace events from the initial brain injury to the psychological outcome. In Paul Broca's case he was not able to do this because there may be a specific mental health problem but no link to brain damage until after post-mortem analysis.
I was watching a youtube video on a women with wernicke's aphasia and it was interesting to watch her do the things the therapist was telling her to do. It seemed as if she was able to understand what the women was saying, and sometimes was able to repeat the actions. However, she was having trouble repeating in word form what the therapist was saying. Her words were gambled and it seemed as if she was trying to say the right thing, but something way different came out instead. After researching more I found out that the man who discovered the aphasia was Carl Wernicke. The damage that person with this type of fluent aphasia deal with the left temporal lobe. Persons usually have trouble with auditory comprehension and their speech is fluent, but often inappropriate and random.
The last thing that I read was about Phineas Gage and the story of the tamping iron accident. After reading it I did not know that he was still able to wall around and might have never ost conciousness during the whole incident. More important he soon became a celebrity and was examined my Harlow. Harlow was able to conduct experiments on Phineas, and later found links to brain damage and psychological behavior. I thought it was cool that an accident like this could lead to so much discovery in the worlds of both psychology and science. It made me question where we would be now without an accident like this. Would science have discovered the links between brain damage and psychological disorder? Yes. But how far would we be behind in our accomplishments and discoveries if something so like this never would have happened. That is why I chose to research farther into the story of Phineas Gage to see what his accident brought to both psychology and science, and it has just been extraordinary.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html?c=y&page=1
This article was the story of Phineas Gage and his importance to the history of psychology.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html?c=y&page=2
This was just the second page of the first article about the history of Phineas Gage.
http://www.csuchico.edu/~pmccaffrey/syllabi/SPPA336/336unit7.html
This was the article that talked about brocas aphasia. It helped me better understand how it affected a person, and the type of behaviors to expect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTdMV6cOZw
this was a video of a woman who had wernickes aphasia. It helped me first try to figure out what the behaviors of a person who suffers from this acts like. My initial accusations were almost right, but later found out through more research that there were a couple things that I was getting wrong.
Paul Broca is someone I found interesting from this chapter. Although he was only mentioned once or twice I was intrigued to do more research on him. Broca is most commonly known for his discovery known as Brocas Area. He was manly interested in anatomy and anthropology. Paul Broca used anthropology and neurology and other forms of medical practice and research. During his time he did more than discover Brocas Area, he founded the Anthropological Society in Paris, and he came up with different ways of measuring physical differences.
With his new way of measuring physical differences he and other scientists concluded that Europeans were better than other races. All because of the size of their skulls. Broca and his colleagues believed quantitative measurements helped to show a persons character and ability.
Brocas area is a spot in the brain that is responsible for speech. He discovered this when he performed an autopsy on his first patient. His patient had suffered from aphasia. He found that this part of the brain contained lesions. He performed similar autopsies on twelve others and found the same thing. Brocas area changed the way language processing, speech production, and language comprehension is viewed and understood.
http://www.uic.edu/depts/
Added to my understanding of Brocas Area.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/paulbroca.aspx
Gave information on Broca's early life asa surgeon. Information about the Anthropological Society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broca
Information on his life, Brocas Area and other research.
Chapter 3
After everything I read in Chapter 3, the thing that stood out to me most was Aphasia. After taking the class Biopsychology, I've been pretty interested in Aphasia and all it entails. I find it extremely fascinating that if such a small part of the brain is damaged someone could be forced to function in manners such as those of Aphasia. It applies very well to chapter three in the sense that Chapter three deals a lot with the anatomy of the brain and the scientists who were responsible for some of the most important discoveries of the brain. Two men who were such scientists were Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke, each responsible for the findings associate with the disorders known as Broca's Aphasia and Wernicke's Aphasia. Although there are other types of Aphasia, these are the two types mentioned in Chapter three and will be the types I'd like to report on and find the most interesting.
Aphasia itself generally is the result of a stroke or brain injury such as head trauma, tumor, or infection such as herpes encephalitis. Damage to the brain's left posterior frontal lobe around the operculum, could be determined to be Broca's Aphasia, also known as Expressive or Non-Fluent Aphasia. While Wernicke's Aphasia could be known as Fluent Aphasia and is the result of damage to the left posterior part of the first temporal gyrus. Although treatment is available for both Broca's and Wernicke's Aphasia, it is much more initially difficult for those with Wericke's Aphasia due to the fact that the patient is unaware that what they are saying doesn't make any sense.
Patients diagnoses with Broca's Aphasia tend to have non-fluent speech. Depending on the severity, they may only be able to use few words ad short sentences. They may also need to take many pauses while attempting to speak. Their words need great effort to pronounce and generally sound very distorted. However, comprehension of the conversation is still intact in these patients. Recovered patients of Broca's Aphasia report knowing what they want to say but not being able to say it.
Unlike patients diagnosed with Broca's Aphasia, those diagnosed with Wernicke's Aphasia maintain no speaking issues. However, there speech may be massively impaired depending on their level of brain damage. Patient's tend to speak in meaningless jargon known as "neologistic jargon". Meaning, the patients speak well, but they have a certain amount of difficulty contributing and comprehending the conversation. Expression may also be impaired in patients diagnosed with Wernicke's Aphasia.
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/pages/aphasia.aspx
This site included very valid information seeing that it was from a .gov site
http://www.csuchico.edu/~pmccaffrey/syllabi/SPPA336/336unit7.html
This site, being an .edu sit, was a place I knew was valid, as well as it had a lot of easily read and understood information
http://www.theaphasiacenter.com/2012/01/what-is-wernickes-aphasia/
This site is for the Aphasia Center so I knew it was a good place to look for information
http://www.atlantaaphasia.org/WhatIsAphasia02.html
This site gave great accounts of both types of Aphasia that I was interested in, and had quite a bit of really dense information
http://www.csuchico.edu/~pmccaffrey/syllabi/SPPA336/336unit8.html
This site was very similar to the one above that I used, but it's not quite the same. This one really focused on Wernicke's Aphasia and answered a lot of questions that I had about the condition. It also had a lot of categories of information, which was helpful
Chapter 3
I decided to do some looking into Broca’s area and brain areas in their relations to function. I really like the idea of studying humans with brain injuries to learn about localization of brain function. Since we cannot test on humans like we do/did on animals I think this is a very smart way to learn about the brain. Broca was one of the first to lead the way in mapping the human brain. Today we have MRIs and other technologies but back in the late 1800s and early 1900s studying patients with injuries was the best way to learn about the brain.
Paul Broca was a French neurosurgeon. His big discovery came in the 1860s when Broca studied the brain of Tan, a recently deceased patient. He found a lesion in Tan’s left frontal cortex. This area was thought to control some aspects of language. Not only Tan but also other patients with lesions or injuries in this location had trouble with speaking. Aphasia is an impairment of language ability and could be having trouble remembering words to not being able to speak, write or read. Apraxia is similar but is when someone is asked to do something and even thought they understand what is being asked but they cannot do it.
Carl Wernicke added to this information ten years later. He found that problems with the back of the left temporal lobe caused issues for understanding language. Wernicke’s aphasia is when a person can still talk and it almost seems to makes sense but it does not and can be called “word salad’. I watched a video of a woman being tested who showed signs of Wernicke’s aphasia. She could understand what the person speaking to her would ask her to do and could do actions like show how she would kiss but her speech did not make sense. She understood she was being asked to say baseball player and could repeat a b sounding word over and over but could not actually say baseball player.
We can further understand localization of brain function using Brodmann's map. Korbinian Brodmann was a neurologist in Germany in the late 1800s to the early 1900s. He was able to map the brain’s cerebral cortex. From Brodmans map we can see the frontal lobe helps with thinking, planning and other executive functions including motor control. The parietal lobe helps with somatosensory perception. The temporal lobe is involved with long-term memory, emotion, auditory perception and language. The occipital lobe helps with visual perception and processing.
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_10/d_10_cr/d_10_cr_lan/d_10_cr_lan.html
Info on Broca, Wernicke and the brain with nice illustrations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korbinian_Brodmann
Info on Korbinian Brodmann
http://www.umich.edu/~cogneuro/jpg/Brodmann.html
Info on Brodmann’s map
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004944/
Info on apraxia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTdMV6cOZw
A video of a woman with Wernicke’s aphasia
Chapter three was full of great information but the topic that intrigued me to learn more about was Hermann Helmholtz and his contribution to the 19th century. During this chapter it discusses his authority on sensory systems and audition. The first chapter talked about the great man theory and that overall got me interested in learning about the men that belong in this category. The rationalist side of theory is something that sticks to me. I think it almost takes more for the second person to add to a theory than the first person. The resources and guts to correct someone is what makes our modern history of psychology relevant. Like the text said before the history of psychology can be summed up in one quote, “ long past, short history.”
Helmholtz was a man of so much knowledge. He begun as a mathematician and philosopher and like many than started research with the eye and perception of sound. With all the new research on the brain they discovered specific energies for nerves. Although he did focus on nerve impulse and speed, the sensory systems is what I found most information on. Breaking down visual perception into just the ablity to make observations in the environment via visible light. This to me seemed to be an overall theory that had to be brought in a s a conclusion that they arrived at after some basic information. His sensory research focused on the mind as something separate from the body, this being a relatively new idea it interest me that he took the chance to continue basing his research on it. This lead to a more focused research on the mind alone. During his time he took a shift to focus on the eye. This lead to his invention of the ophthalmoscope. The text did not really elaborate on his invention, I personally think an invention of this at that time would be extremely exciting. This is the first invention to look at the inside of the human eye. This tool is still used today for routine check ups! Technically it was invented a few years prior, but it did not become useful until his reconstruction of the tool. He may have been second, but this reinvention apparently went viral overnight. And he overall did more with his invention to further research and discover. Perception is what Helmholtz was lead towards shortly after. He then went on to color vision and perception of sound. I looked up some of his studies and research and found some examples of his research. One main thing I think about is how did they do this type of research without technology. I know that we are far too dependent on it, but it just makes me curious. There was a many examples on youtube, but they all helped me get a general understanding. Discovering pitch and tone is all done with technology today, and therefore this type of stimulation was ingenious during his time. The sensations of tones and are perceived hearing is amazing and unless I did this topic I would have never seen how it was done with the double siren. He lead to discovery after discovery and seemed to do research for most of his life. The timeline given in the links gave me a lay out of his life and he seemed to continuously achieve, from 1845-93 he held so many great achievements. It sounds weird but it makes me wonder if achievements of this rich nature are even possible today. Imagine a career with this much discovery in such a short period of time. Learning about individuals not only gives me an appriciation but shows me the beginning of the subsets of psychology.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermann-helmholtz/
I used this as a foundation of his life and research. Because he did so many areas it was hard to follow. This shows his overall lifestyle and some of his views that were up for debate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_von_Helmholtz
Wiki just gave me an overall back ground and then when I found something interesting I would click on the link and read more and continue to follow links. I also looked at some of the further readings and gained information from several links for each area of research he did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4vk6J3N_Xg
This was the most understandable clip of a study reenacted for sound and perception.I was curroious how he created this research without technology and found out so much information, this site made it more clear. I also used the comments below to help my understanding of sound perception.
The topic I chose to discuss more about from this chapter is Phineas Gage. I think he has an interesting story and the book could not have covered all of it in such a small section. The injury itself is pretty remarkable. Not only was he able to survive this devastating injury but he was able to live out the rest of his life remotely functional. Phineas Gage happens to be one of the most famous patients in neuroscience, and justly so.
His accident happened while preparing to set a blast for the railroad construction company he was a foreman for. A spark caused the gun powder to ignite and the tamping iron to shoot through his skull, causing great damage to his left frontal lobe. This was an amazing accident because of how lucky he was to survive. The taming iron was cylindrical and had a point at the end that initially entered the skull. The point allowed it to slide through his brain and back out of the skull without destroying the entire brain. It is impressive to me that after such a dramatic accident he was able to walk almost immediately after.
After he walked to the cart he was taken to the closest doctor, Dr. Edward H. Williams. Williams did not do much other than to inspect the injury. He then met with Dr. John Martyn Harlow, the man that would begin performing surgeries on Gage and later doing research on the effects of the injury. It is amazing that within months he was able to return to his parents' home in New Hampshire. After everyone was expecting him to die he ended up making a full recovery while being near death multiple times.
Later on in his life it was said that he made visits to museums in larger nearby cities to show people his injury and the tamping iron that caused it. After giving his tamping iron to Harvard medical school, He took it back a year later. I find it interesting that he decided to keep this tool that caused him so many troubles throughout his life. Photos of him holding the tamping iron were recently discovered and are some of the few known pictures of him.
After his death his skull and tamping iron were donated back to Harvard Medical school where they still remain today. Harlow used the skull and tamping iron to write a new paper on the amazing case of Gage and the taming iron before Harvard Medical school received them.
This whole story about Gage is fascinating to me. I am surprised at how horrible of an injury it was, and how lucky he was to survive and function for the last twelve years of his life. I know it is hard to think this could be lucky but it seems like a lot of things happened just right for him to survive. The iron having a point to shoot straight through instead of destroying everything in his head, the wholes allowed for drainage to help fend of infections, and of course a doctor that was able to keep him alive. Phineas Gage played a major role in the history of neuroscience which has shaped our views on psychology. We now are able to know that the left frontal lobe has a huge role in behavior and processing.
Studies in 1994 had been done to show that the injury damaged both the left and right prefrontal cortices. In 2004 they discovered that the injury damaged the left frontal lobe. In 2012 they discovered that eleven percent of his white matter and 4 percent of his cerebral cortex. Gages' accident will surely be studied for a very long time and has already made a great contribution to psychology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
This site provided plenty of background information on Gage and his injury.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html
This site talked about the photos of Gage and how they were discovered.
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/phineas-gage.htm
This site talked about the recent discoveries of the injury, and also discussed a brief background and history of the medical work.
Although I did say in my last blog post that I was tired of reading about Phineas Gage, I do find his story interesting. In the textbook, Gage’s story is used as an example of the localization of brain functions. The story is referenced so often because it changed how people viewed the relationship between the “mind” and the “brain.” I am interested in this topic because, although I have read about it in almost every one of Psychology courses, it is a remarkable story with big consequences and impacts on the field of Psychology. It is also likely never to be replicated, so the information one can gain from studying this phenomenon is invaluable.
Phineas Gage was working on the railroad when a freak accident caused a metal rod to impale his brain. Although his doctors and family thought he was going to die, Gage made a long, surprising recovery. Within about two months, Gage had made a “full recovery,” where he reported feeling no pain at all. Although damage to certain parts of his brain were damaged, he was still able to function normally.
Initially this case proved two things: that different parts of the brain control/influence different behaviors and thought processes and that if one part of the brain is damaged or missing that the rest of the brain will “pick of the slack.” These discoveries were huge in that era, as they contradicted a lot of popular belief as to how the brain and mind function together. Gage did undergo a massive personality shift, however. This lead to the development of the study of localization of brain functioning. This tragedy was very useful in the progression of the field and many discoveries thereafter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1114479/
I'm interested in Hermann Helmholtz, especially his theories of perception. For this week, I have decided to do more research on him and his theories.
Helmholtz propsed a theory of perception called "sign theory". Helmholtz worked with Muller, another psychologist interested in perception. Muller proposed a theory stating that there is an innate arrangement of sense nerves that recreate the object we are percieving. Helmholtz' sign theory counters Mullers theory. Instead, Helmholtz said that we *construct* our perception of objects based on learned "unconscious inferences". Instead of taking in sensory stimuli and not being sure how to interpret it, the brain automatically does the dirty work-- it infers what was either unseen or visually distorted, making the best guess based on previous experiences.
He compares perception to predictive hypotheses of science, though it is projected externally and is accepted on face as reality. The conclusion is somewhat perplexing to someone who has always assumed that takes reality at face value; for Helmholtz, it is not seeing that gives us knowledge, but knowledge that allows us to see! More evidence for his theory lies in the notion that most properties of objects cannot be understood at a glance-- weight and temperature cannot be discerned by sight, and neither can the edibility of food.
He gives the example of how our spacial perception is skewed: Our vision is actually two images fused into one. Our perception, however, is based on our experience and the properties of our sense organs. We interpret the minimal data our sensory organs can provide for us with our experience. Helmholtz said that the more we know about our physiology and the way the mind tends to interpret the world, the more likely we are to acquire an accurate representation of reality.
From Helmholtz, a variety of perceptual theories have emerged. There is now much more literature on the matter. Relating to Helmholtz, there are other psychologists who have done research in the area of illusions, like Young and Barlow. And with so much progress in the area, it only makes sense to look for applications-- like fashion.
Though it's not as philosophically deep as Helmholtz probably intended, the application of his material is being used in the fashion industry. In the fashion world, people are told that they should wear vertical stripes to make them look taller and horizontal stripes to make them look wider. Helmholtz' theory shoes that horizontal lines exaggerate width and vertical lines exaggerate height, *however*, this is only the case when we are looking at 2D objects. A recent study confirmed that it makes no difference on human bodies, which are 3D, providing further support for Helmholtz's theory.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermann-helmholtz/
http://www.richardgregory.org/papers/knowl_illusion/knowledge-in-perception.pdf
http://i-perception.perceptionweb.com/fulltext/i02/i0405.pdf
RB
Of all the topics that were presented, the one thing that interested me the most was that of the case of Phineas Gage. I mean, I know it’s not quite a topic, but it still grabbed my attention.
Just the fact that he survived an injury like that, especially to the head, is very intriguing indeed. The other part of this story that interested me was that he became a living experiment for phrenologist John Harlow for years. Thus, I decided to look more into this story about this character.
The tamping iron that Phineas Gage was using to pack gunpowder into a hole measeured 1.25 inches in diameter and roughly 43 inches long. When the powder ignited, it sent the tamping iron through Gage’s skull. When it went through his skull, it tore a piece of Gage’s brain in the process. Regardless of all this trama, Phineas Gage survived and what was even more amazing, he was conscious and aware when he was first attended to. He could even recall the names of his coworkers and what he was doing at the time of the accident. As a result of this injury, however, Phineas Gage began to develop some changes in his personality.
Phineas Gage’s case soon provided the perfect opportunity for doctor John Martyn Harlow to test his theory of cerebral localization. In studying Gage, Harlow found that the former railroad foreman, and well respected community leader had suddenly turned into almost another person. As his friends described him, Phineas Gage was no longer Phineas Gage. He could no longer stick to plans, he no longer showed concern for his friends and when he would speak he would use extreme profanity. The railroad compamy he had previously worked for and had been a model foreman for, would no longer let him work there. Thus Phineas Gage had to go elsewhere for work. The other employers Phineas had would come to describe him as a reckless drunkard who could not hold a job.
What also made this story so interesting was that Phineas Gage was and is one of the most famous patients in neuroscience history. His case was the first case to bring about the idea that there was a link between brain trauma and personality change.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html
This webpage gave a great overview on the story of Phineas Gage
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/phineas-gage.htm
This webpage gave both the story of the accident and the aftermath in detail
http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/06/the-incredible-case-of-phineas/
This page gave fine details into the story of Phineas Gage
BR
When reading chapter three my favorite part was the section about Phineas Gage. I’ve always liked learning about him and his brain injury so I decided to do some more research on him for this week’s blog.
Phineas Gage was a respeceted railroad worker in Vermont living his life normally until one day everything would change. Gage’s life changed forever on September 13, 1848 when a tamping rod caused an explosion and soared through his cheek, annihilated his left eye and ended up coming out of the top of his skull cleanly. The crazy part was it took a piece of his brain with it. Amazingly, Gage managed to walk, speak and stay conscious moments after the indicident. After getting his wound bandaged up in two months time his physical abilities remained intact as well as his speech. Phineas’s personality was significantly altered from his brain injury though. No surgery was done on his wound and no antibiotics were around back then which made this even more remarkable.
John Harlow was the doctor that took care of his injury and observed him for a couple months. He noticed that Gage couldn’t stick to plans, he cussed a lot, and lacked respect for his friends; prior to his brain damage he was dependable, respectful and seen as a good man. Dr. Harlow’s observations were a huge breakthrough in neuroscience, because this led to the realization that certain parts of the brain are linked to personality. This was the start of localization and what parts of the brain affect what personalites and physcial abilities. His condition made him famous and the observations made by Dr. Harlow was a big contribution to learning more about the brain and how it also connects to personality.
This is interesting to me because this happened when antibiotics weren’t around and Phineas survived a major brain injury for thirteen years without any medicine. It just reminds me how unexpectedly mysterious the human mind and body can be.
http://web.mesacc.edu/dept/d10/asb/origins/phineas.html
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-GageNeurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html?c=y&page=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc213mMSsjY
I decided to do my topical blog on Phrenology, I understand that this actual concept is no longer viewed as correct or useful and actually hasn’t been since shortly after it was ‘discovered’; however, I do find the topic in and of itself to be very interesting and I think the ideas or concepts behind the actual theory do hold some important information or at least a unique way of thinking.
To start off, Phrenology is the scientific study of the relationship between a person’s character and the morphology of their skull. This theory was discovered by Franz Gall, who was one of the first persons to consider the brain as the home of mental activities. Gall himself was able to link aspects of character; referred to as faculties to precise brain locations. Phrenology soon got a bad name and some say this is due to certain con-men of that time period abusing the use and findings of the theory. Some example of this are Anti-Semitism and the Nazis’ use of what “Jew” is to look like, looking at their eye shape, head shape, etc. These have obviously put a damper on the use of Phrenology, but still it’s not a forgotten subject.
The future of phrenology in some scholars eyes, could possibly be making a comeback. Much of the criticism can be dismissed that through exploitation and evil doings of humans that led to the bad name associated with phrenology. Many are starting to look back at phrenology, making sure not to make the same mistakes and realizing that perhaps it can be seen as a valuable tool in the ways of; self-knowledge, self-achievement, education, law enforcement, and so on. I think untimely we see phrenology as being a bunch of nonsense, but are we simply looking at the findings of this theory as nonsense because they truly are, or perhaps because that’s what some scientist said two hundred years ago, which was then associated with wrong doings by different groups in society who abused the theory also? Could we now simply be judging or overlooking phrenology as something less important than it really is. After all isn’t Phrenology a science based on observation, and then the given faculties that are gathered through experiments, can be altered but not changed by our external factors such as the environment we are presented with. I may be way off here but could there be some correlation with children who have a smaller skull or protrusion of their eyes and their IQ scores; and could these two things be caused by being raised in a lower income neighborhood. Could this be because their mother didn’t have enough nutrition during her pregnancy causing these differences? What I am not saying here is that this is means for saying someone is mentally challenge, but rather just one of those slight differences in learning abilities.
http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html
http://www.phrenology.com/
http://www.neurosurgery.org/cybermuseum/pre20th/phren/phrenology.html
I decided to write my blog on Phineas Gage. I don't remember having heard about him before this chapter, but brain injuries and their effects really interest me. I wanted to learn more about his life, his accident, and what changes occurred afterwards.
Phineas Gage was a railroad construction foreman in Vermont. He was blasting rock with a tamping iron when the iron struck some gunpowder and was sent flying. The iron then went flying through Gage's head. It entered just under his left cheekbone and exited at the top of his head. This took out a sizable portion of his brain.
Gage was initially alright after the event and was able to walk, talk, and remember who everyone around him was. Pressure on the brain caused him to be in a semi-comatose state for a four day period starting ten days after his accident. After this, Gage recovered, seeming only to lose the use of his left eye.
Gage's brain damage does appear to have caused some personality changes. His former doctor claimed that Gage had started swearing (which he had not done before), was impatient and stubborn. He had the intellectual capacity of a child, but the passions of a man. Gage would also skip from one plan to the next very quickly.
Gage was not able to return to the railroad after his accident. Instead, he appeared as an act for a while at Barnum's American Museum in New York City. After this he worked in a livery stable in New Hampshire, and then as a stagecoach driver in Chile. When his health began to fail he moved to San Fransisco to live with family.
Twelve years after his accident, a year after he moved to San Fransisco, Gage had a series of convulsions and died. Gage's skull and the tamping iron that caused the damage are on display at the Warren Museum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/phineas-gage.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/nov/05/phineas-gage-head-personality
Dr. Franz Joseph Gall invented phrenology. He theorized that the shape of the skull was determined by the shape of brain and therefore bumps on the skull related to characteristics of the mind. I was most interested in his theory because of its impact on society in his era. It was believed that the bumps were in response to parts of the brain that were most in use, very much the same way we can develop our calf muscles through proper exercise. If a person was utilizing specific portions of the brain, that part of the brain would become larger and the skull would protrude in that area. It really is an interesting theory, and maybe it seemed logical at the time, although now we know it to be false.
Out of interest in phrenology, and maybe the decision to study it in order to disprove it, there came the realization that mental faculties are housed in specific areas of the skull, and the science of neurology was born.
Dr. Gall was not unintelligent nor was he a charlatan, and he was one of the first to believe that cognitive functions were housed in the skull. Phrenology, however, did take a turn toward pseudo-science as people did learn to use the technique to earn money, and some medical doctors incorporated it into their practices. I understand why this did happen, because what if they had not learned the technique and it then turned out to be valid? Doctor not practicing phrenology might then have been considered out of touch or incompetent. Doctors did not have the technology which we have today in order to study the workings of the mind. Medicine is a competitive field and new advances are made every day.
Today, people have their bodies frozen at the moment of death in the hopes of being revived by an advanced medical community in the future. Most of us would look at that as ludicrous, but what if we are wrong and those people are, in fact, revived? I console myself with the idea that if they are revived then they will be pranced about like the Rhesus monkey on display, and very likely they will not have the mental intelligence of the advanced race that revives them.
I used these sites as references and information on phrenology:
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/phrenology/intro.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/f/phrenology.htm
http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html