Damasio study

Phineas Gage was working on the railway when an explosion caused an iron rod to be fired through his head. Which area of his brain did it affect?

• Parietal lobe

• Frontal lobe

• Occipital lobe

• Temporal lobe

What was the aim of Damasio's study on Phineas Gage?

• To determine the shape of Gage's skull before the accident had taken place.

• To discover why Gage had a brain injury.

• To build a 3D model of Gage's skull to determine areas of the brain that were affected by the injury.

• To study the number of rods that were involved in the explsion leading to Gage's injury.

The procedure: pictures and measurements were taken of Gage's feet

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Gage's SKULL

The procedure: the rod was 3cm wide and 119m long

• True

• False

Answer explanation

3cm wide and 109cm long

The procedure: The iron rod had been buried with Gage, they compared the rod with parts of the skull that were damaged to work out the path the bar would have taken.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

The procedure: Damasio worked out 5 likely paths and mapped out which areas of the brain were likely to have been damaged

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Results: Both left and right hemisphere of the temporal lobe was damaged

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Left and right hemisphere of frontal lobe

Result: Apart from the frontal lobe, no other area is assumed to have been affected

• True

• False

There was damage to the white matter in the left hemisphere

• True

• False

Answer explanation

White matter: where neurons pass messages along the axon fibers. This meant messages could not b passed to these areas of the brain.

The ventromedial region of the hemispheres. This is the...

• The back of the hemisphere.

• Top edges of the hemisphere.

• Middle of the underside of the hemisphere.

• The front of the hemisphere.