Frontal Lobe Function: Mr.Phineas Gage’s Famous Injury

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1 Frontal Lobe Function: Mr.Phineas Gage’s Famous Injury
1 2 M A R C H 3 Presented by by Kaan Yücel M.D., P.h.D. Thomas C. Neylan, M.D., Section Editor

2 Rutland & Burlington Rail Road
John Martyn Harlow, M.D. November 25, May 13, 1907 25 years old 29 years old Vermont pack sand over an explosive charge, charge exploded unexpectedly and propelled the3-foot-long Rutland & Burlington Rail Road

3 13-pound rod entered the left cheek and exited the midline of the skull anterior to the bregma, resulting in severe injury to his left and, in all probability, his right prefrontal cortex. 13 pound= 5.9 kg.

4

5 The Gage case, one of the most famous and influential in neuropsychiatry, played a crucial role in the discovery of behavioral syndromes resulting from frontal lobe dysfunction. Readers interested in detailed accounts of the case and its historical context can find excellent reviews by MacMillan and Barker. MacMillan MB: A wonderful journey through skull and brains: the travels of Mr. Gage’s tamping iron. Brain Cogn 1986; 5:67–107 4. Barker FG: Phineas among the phrenologists:theAmericancrow- bar case and nineteenth-century theories of cerebral localization. J Neurosurg 1995; 82:672–682

6 The case report was initially met with disbelief because it was thought to be impossible for a human to survive a brain injury of such magnitude. Beyond the astonishing fact of Mr. Gage’s survival was the description of his ability to walk immediately after the event, communicate sensibly, and remain lucid though mostof the period following the injury. This fact attracted the attention of P. T. Barnum, who employed Mr. Gage for a short period following his recovery. Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, a prominent professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, examined Mr. Gage after Harlow’s report and failed to note the changes in Gage’s behavior.

7 He proclaimed that Gage had no demonstrable sequelae of the injury.
Dr. Bigelow and others used the Gage case as a persuasive argument against the field of phrenology,which was the only prominent discipline at the time that considered the possibility of localization of brain function. there are several sugges- tions in the original report that Mr. Gage’s behavior had changed. Dr. Harlow promised to report the mental manifestations of the injury in a subsequent communication. He did not produce this report until 20 years later, when he described a pervasive change in personality and character in the Journal of the Massachusetts Medical Society, a periodical with very limited circula- tion. In this report, Harlow described the following: 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 or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, 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.”

8 Dr. David Ferrier, who was an early champion for the theory of cerebral localization, discovered Harlow’s second report and used it as the highlight of his famous 1878 Goulstonian lectures, which described indetail the focal mapping of the cerebral function. The frontal lobes were considered to be involved in higher executive function. Dr. Ferrier cited the Gage case as a primary example of how frontal lobe injury can result in changes of personality that are not demonstrable by sensory and motor exam. The Gage case is now one of the most fre- quently cited articles from nineteenth-century medical literature. Phineas Gage died in San Francisco, apparently from complications of seizures, years after his injury. Dr. Harlow obtained consent from Mr. Gage’s family to ob tain the skull and tamping iron, which are now in the collection of the Warren Anatomic Museum at Harvard University.

9 Passage of an Iron Rod Through the Head
Nov. 27, 1848 Having been interested in the reading of the cases of “Injuries of the Head,” reported in your Journal by Professor Shipman, of Cortlandville, N.Y., I am induced to offer you the notes of a very severe, singular, and, so far as the result is taken into account,hitherto unparalleled case,of that class of injuries,which has recently fallen under my own care. It appears from his own account, and that of the by- standers, that he was engaged in charging a hole, preparatory to blasting. He had turned in the powder, and was in the act of tamping it slightly before pouring on the sand. He had struck the powder, and while about to strike it again, turned his head to look after his men (who were working within a few feet of him), when the tamping iron came in contact with the rock, and the powder exploded, driving the iron against the left side of the face, immediately anterior to the angle of the inferior maxillary bone.

10 Taking a direction upward and backward toward the median line, it penetrated the integuments, the masseter and temporal muscles, passed under the zygomatic arch, and (probably) fracturingthe temporal portion of the sphenoid bone, and the floor of the orbit of the left eye, entered the cranium, passing through the anterior left lobe of thecerebrum,andmade its exit in the median line, at the junction of the coronal and sagittal sutures, lacerating the longitudinal sinus, fracturing the parietal and frontal bones extensively, breaking up considerable portions of brain, and protruding the globe of the left eye from its socket, by nearly one half its diameter. The tamping iron is round, andrenderedcomparativelysmoothbyuse.Itispointed at the end which entered first, and is three feet, seven inches in length, one and one quarter inch in diameter, and weighs 13 1⁄4 pounds. 1 m. 2 cm. in length 3 cm. in diameter 6 kg.

11 I am informed that the patient was thrown upon his back, and gave a few convulsive motions of the extremities, but spoke in a few minutes. His men (with whom he was a great favorite) took him in their arms and carried him to the road, only a few rods distant, and sat him into an ox cart, in which he rode, sitting erect, full three quarters of a mile, to the hotel of Mr. Joseph Adams, in this village. He got out of the cart himself, and with a little assistance walked up a long flight of stairs, into the hall, where he was dressed. Being absent, I did not arrive at the scene of the accident until near 6 o’clock, P.M. You will excuse me for remarking here, that the picture presented was, to one unaccustomed to military surgery, truly terrific; but the patient bore his sufferings with the most heroic firm ness. He recognized me at once, and said he hoped he was not much hurt.He seemed to be perfectly conscious, but was getting exhausted from the hemorrhage, which was very profuse both externally and internally, the blood finding its way into the stomach, which rejected it as often as every 15 or 20 minutes. Pulse 60, and reg- ular. Hisperson, and thebed on which he was laid,were literally one gore of blood. From their appearance, the fragments of bone being uplifted and the brain protruding, it was evident that the fracture was occasioned by some force acting from below up- ward. portion of the anterior superior angle of each parietal bone, and a semi-circular piece of the frontal bone, were fractured, leaving a circular opening of about 31⁄2 inches in diameter. This examination, and the appearance of the iron which was found some rods distant, smeared with brain,together with the testimony of the workmen, and of the patient himself, who was still sufficiently conscious to say that “the iron struck his head and passed through,” was considered at the time sufficiently conclusive to show not only the nature of the accident, but the manner in which it occurred.

12 Tells where they live, their names, &c. Pulse65
17th, 8, A.M.—Pulse 84. Purged freely. Rational, and knows his friends. 11th.—Pulse 72. Intellectual faculties brightening. When I asked him how long since he was injured, he replied, “four weeks this afternoon, at 41⁄2 o’clock.” Re- lates the manner in which it occurred, and how he came to the house. He keeps the day of the week and time of day, in his mind. Says he knows more than half of those who inquire after him. Does not estimate size or money accurately, though he has memory as perfect as ever. He would not take $1000 for a few pebbles which he took from an ancient river bed where he was at work. His desire to be out and to go home to Lebanon has been uncontrollable by his friends, and he has been making arrangements to that effect. I think the case presents one fact of great interest to the practical surgeon, and, taken as a whole, is exceedingly interesting to the enlightened physiologist and intellectual philosopher .

13 Prior to the incident, Gage was described as reliable, systematic, and hard- working. Afterwards, his personality is said to have changed and he became impulsive, disorganized, and stubborn. His language was said to be colorfully profane, although he did not customarily swear before the injury. Whether these were permanent changes or confined to the year or so after the in jury is in dispute, because Harlow depended on secondhand information for most of his follow-up, seeing Gage only once again after the first 5 months of his recovery. Gage recovered enough in executive function to make a living for himself, first as a circus act, where he appeared holding the iron tamping rod, which he kept for the rest of his life, and then as a hand in a livery stable. Later, he moved to Chile and drove a stage coach,which speaks well of his ability to adapt behaviorally and his neurological function. Toward the end of his life,which came in1860 from a seizure disorder undoubtedly related to the injury, he moved to California to reunite with his mother and sister.

14 Our reconstruction of Gage’s injury confirms once again Bigelow’s assessment that the “the leading feature of this case is its improbability” (Bigelow, 1850). Macmillan (2000) has shown that the record of how Phineas Gage’s character changed after the accident must be considered with caution; this circumstance, in the light of our still vague understanding of neuropsychology neither requires nor can rule out such a hypothesis. According to our results, the brain parenchyma injury appears to be much less extended than previously thought. Only the medial and lateral orbito-frontal as well as the dorsolateral prefrontal regions of the left frontal lobe were injured as a consequence of direct missile impact