1848

Brain Science:

In 1848, twenty five year old Phineas Gage was working on the construction of a railroad in Cavendish, Vermont. As he was packing explosive powder into a hole using a large iron rod the powder ignited. The rod shot up through his face, penetrating his left cheek. It traveled all the way through his brain and out the top of his head. His left eye was blinded, but he didn’t die.   Possibly he didn’t even lose consciousness or experience pain. In the picture he is shown holding the rod that went through his brain.

According to accounts, he went from being a model gentleman to a mean, violent, unreliable person. Gage was the first account of the link between trauma to certain regions of brain and personality change. Phineas Gage has been written about in medical literature ever since. He became one of neuroscience’s most famous patients.

Brain facts:

    •    There is something else that Phineas taught us that is important for our understanding of the brain. Some accounts of his life document a return of his personality to a more amiable nature closer to his death. This was one of the first accounts of the fact that the brain can heal and rehabilitate itself, even after significant trauma.

    •    It is now an accepted fact that the brain has a process that can reestablish networks and connections in areas of the brain damaged by injury.

    •    This process and the ability of the brain to accomplish reestablishing networks is called neuroplasticity. 

    •    Neurogenesis is the brains process of creating new brain cells. This is the subject of intense research at the present time.

    •    In 1998, a Swedish neurologist Peter Erikson was among the first to publish a report documenting that within our brains -in the hippocampus- there is a reservoir of neural stem cells that are continually replenished and can differentiate into brain neurons.

So What:

·         So, as it turns out you are not, I repeat, you are not bound by the supposed I.Q. you were born with. Perhaps we should even do away with this idea that our future should be tied to anything like I.Q. What is significantly more important is our ability to keep building our brain’s hippocampus and in turn our brain, and in turn our cognition, and in turn our intelligence.

·         The fact that neurogenesis occurs in us throughout our lifetimes, coupled with the fact we can change its circuitry through neuroplasticity, has instilled hope in those searching for clues to slowing down, reversing, or even stopping and curing progressive brain disease.

·         All of the above is why boxing works for Parkinson patients!!!!!!!!!