Researchers map damage to Phineas Gage's brain Neurologists have
modeled the damage caused to a man's brain when a three-foot
metal bar was driven through his head - over 160 years after the
accident happened. In 1848, railway supervisor Phineas Gage
became the most famous case in the history of neuroscience when
a chance explosion drove the rod through his left cheek and out
of the top of his head. Much of his left frontal lobe was
destroyed and, famously, his personality was changed, with Gage
becoming erratic and bad-tempered. Until now, it's not been
known exactly where and how badly Gage's brain was damaged. But
UCLA researchers have now used brain-imaging data to look at the
damage to the white matter 'pathways' that connect various
regions of the brain. While around four percent of the cerebral
cortex was intersected by the rod's passage, they say, more than
10 percent of Gage's total white matter was damaged. "What we
found was a significant loss of white matter connecting the left
frontal regions and