One thing that I found very interesting in the biological psychology chapter was the story of Phineas Gage and his severed prefrontal cortex. It got me thinking, are there way to reverse these kinds of injuries? And if not, are there ways to adapt? When looking for this information, I came across a scholarly article on Pubmed.gov about a study that showed that damage to your prefrontal cortex can actually increase your utilitarian moral judgements. The six patients that were observed during this study showed complete functioning between right and wrong, and an increased awareness of why they made their decisions. Considering brain injuries are devastating
, I think this study could really lead the way for other studies observing brain injuries and creating ways for people to deal with them.
DS Bio-Make up
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Huh, that's pretty interesting how their awareness increased. I wonder if maybe we can turn our brain into a supercomputer or an all-knowing being if we can turn off all of its other functions. I'm not suggesting we try it out, that's not ethically right, but just a cool thing to think about. As for reversibility, maybe as we learn about how to use stem cells, we could find a way.
While there may be some potential benefits from this type of injury, I’m still curious about your original questions. Are any of these damages reversible? Can the human body adapt to an injury like this? I found it interesting that this increased morality in the brain, but I also was curious if this was a correlation or causation. Also, though increased morality could be a positive, couldn’t this also be considered a change in personality and thought processes, associated with prefrontal cortex injuries? Though this was an interesting post, I was slightly confused about the questions you asked not being answered. I was also wondering if you had done any research on experimental treatments for injuries like this, and if anything has yet been developed to help the human brain cope with such damages.