Abstract

MUCI-MENDOZA, Rafael. El accidente de Phineas Gage: su legado a la neurobiología. Gac Méd Caracas [online]. 2007, vol.115, n.1, pp.17-28. ISSN 0367-4762.

Phineas Gage is doubtless one of the most famous patients in the history of neurology. An infallible quote in neurology textbooks and the object of numerous scientific articles for over one hundred and fifty years. This exceptional case has allowed investigators to establish the role of the frontal cortex, specifically its ventromedial portion in the development of human thought and his/her capacity to socialize and also the close relationship of these structures with emotion-related circuits and systems which participate in the decision-making process and contributes to determine the affective tone of social interaction. A brief glance at the history of medicine shows it is exceedingly infrequent for a patient’s name to transcend into posterity. Why then is the name Gage remembered instead of John Martin Harlow’s, the keen describer of Gage’s insanity? Perhaps because Gage’s case is still considered one of the salient descriptions of a “psychopathic” disorder of behavior directly related to a traumatic lesion of the prefrontal cortex in which an anatomoclinical correlation has been attempted through diverse conceptions and methods tailored to each historical period of time. Gage’s tale will take the reader for a ride along the fascinating evolutional pathways of medical thinking that have permitted the acquisition of knowledgeable localization of neurological function and allowed scientists to peep into the entangled realm of the mind and spirit.

Keywords : Phineas Gage; René Descartes; Phrenology; Neurological localization; Frontal lobe.