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Do Liberals have brain damage?
Rembrandt
Member Posts: 4,486 ✭✭
Read an article recently about people that have trouble making moral decisions that may be linked to brain damage. The question arises whether some noted liberals (Clintons, Jesse Jackson, etc) have bumped their heads sometime during their life? Read this and tell me what you think......
Damaged brains lead to altered social and moral judgment
The MRI data is consistent with previous research that showed an important role for parts of the prefrontal cortex in making social and moral choices. Human patients who have lesions in a part of the prefrontal cortex called the orbitofrontal cortex, which lies just above the eye sockets, often behave in ways that are irresponsible towards themselves and others.
When these lesions occur in adulthood, either due to accident or disease, they can have drastic effects on the personality of a person. One of the most famous examples is Phineas Gage, a hardworking, dependable railway worker, who in the summer of 1848 was the victim of a terrible accident. An expected explosion drove a long steel rod through his left cheek and out the top of his head, badly damaging his frontal cortex, especially the orbitofrontal cortex. Miraculously, Gage survived the accident and appeared to recover.
Intellectually, Gage did recover completely, but there were dramatic changes in his personality and behavior. The once reliable railway foreman, who had been respected by the men he supervised, and well-thought-of by his employers and his friends and family, now exhibited a total disregard for responsibility, swore profusely (a trait that began only after the accident), and he now treated his loved ones terribly.
Recently, a close examination of Gage's skull using a computer simulated recreation showed that the damage caused by the iron rod had been to the orbitofrontal cortex. Also, research on other patients with brain lesions has confirmed that the changes Gage underwent are consistent with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex. One of the fascinating characteristics of these patients is that their intellects are intact, and they can actually reason and verbally describe the most appropriate way to act in a given situation, showing that they have factual knowledge of social and moral norms, but they are unable to put that knowledge into practice in "real-world" situations.
This is true for patients who acquired the lesions as adults, but recently Antonio Damasio, a neurologist at the University of Iowa, who has studied numerous cases of orbitofrontal cortex damage, examined two adult patients who had suffered damage to this area in their early childhood. In one case the lesion was due to a vehicular accident when the patient was 15 months old, and in the second case, the cause was a brain tumor that had been removed when the patient was only three months old. At the time of the study, both of the patients were in their twenties and had been raised in stable and supportive families.
Damasio and his colleagues found some intriguing differences between the patients with early-acquired legions and those who acquired the lesions as adults. Both types of patients exhibited the characteristic and dramatic difficulties in social behavior, but when the patients were given tests measuring moral reasoning and verbal responses to social situations, the patients with early-acquired lesions performed poorly.
The tests present scenarios based on real-life situations, followed by questions about the conflicts and dilemmas posed in each of the scenarios. As discussed earlier, patients with adult-acquired lesions can respond appropriately to these tests, indicating they have social and moral knowledge, but they are unable to use this knowledge in everyday life. The patients, who had acquired the lesions at an early age, on the other hand, performed very poorly on the tests, and in fact their level of moral reasoning was equal to that of a ten-year-old child and indicated an excessively egocentric attitude.
These results imply that the orbitofrontal cortex is not only important for the processing of social and moral judgments in adults, but that damage to it early in life makes it impossible for a person to acquire the knowledge needed to make social and moral behavioral choices, both in "real-life" and in theoretical situations.
Damaged brains lead to altered social and moral judgment
The MRI data is consistent with previous research that showed an important role for parts of the prefrontal cortex in making social and moral choices. Human patients who have lesions in a part of the prefrontal cortex called the orbitofrontal cortex, which lies just above the eye sockets, often behave in ways that are irresponsible towards themselves and others.
When these lesions occur in adulthood, either due to accident or disease, they can have drastic effects on the personality of a person. One of the most famous examples is Phineas Gage, a hardworking, dependable railway worker, who in the summer of 1848 was the victim of a terrible accident. An expected explosion drove a long steel rod through his left cheek and out the top of his head, badly damaging his frontal cortex, especially the orbitofrontal cortex. Miraculously, Gage survived the accident and appeared to recover.
Intellectually, Gage did recover completely, but there were dramatic changes in his personality and behavior. The once reliable railway foreman, who had been respected by the men he supervised, and well-thought-of by his employers and his friends and family, now exhibited a total disregard for responsibility, swore profusely (a trait that began only after the accident), and he now treated his loved ones terribly.
Recently, a close examination of Gage's skull using a computer simulated recreation showed that the damage caused by the iron rod had been to the orbitofrontal cortex. Also, research on other patients with brain lesions has confirmed that the changes Gage underwent are consistent with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex. One of the fascinating characteristics of these patients is that their intellects are intact, and they can actually reason and verbally describe the most appropriate way to act in a given situation, showing that they have factual knowledge of social and moral norms, but they are unable to put that knowledge into practice in "real-world" situations.
This is true for patients who acquired the lesions as adults, but recently Antonio Damasio, a neurologist at the University of Iowa, who has studied numerous cases of orbitofrontal cortex damage, examined two adult patients who had suffered damage to this area in their early childhood. In one case the lesion was due to a vehicular accident when the patient was 15 months old, and in the second case, the cause was a brain tumor that had been removed when the patient was only three months old. At the time of the study, both of the patients were in their twenties and had been raised in stable and supportive families.
Damasio and his colleagues found some intriguing differences between the patients with early-acquired legions and those who acquired the lesions as adults. Both types of patients exhibited the characteristic and dramatic difficulties in social behavior, but when the patients were given tests measuring moral reasoning and verbal responses to social situations, the patients with early-acquired lesions performed poorly.
The tests present scenarios based on real-life situations, followed by questions about the conflicts and dilemmas posed in each of the scenarios. As discussed earlier, patients with adult-acquired lesions can respond appropriately to these tests, indicating they have social and moral knowledge, but they are unable to use this knowledge in everyday life. The patients, who had acquired the lesions at an early age, on the other hand, performed very poorly on the tests, and in fact their level of moral reasoning was equal to that of a ten-year-old child and indicated an excessively egocentric attitude.
These results imply that the orbitofrontal cortex is not only important for the processing of social and moral judgments in adults, but that damage to it early in life makes it impossible for a person to acquire the knowledge needed to make social and moral behavioral choices, both in "real-life" and in theoretical situations.
Comments
This isn't new knowledge.
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muley--The smell of Hoppe's absolutely must be ranked as one of the top ten aphrodesiacs known to mankind. Have you heard Hoppes' radio commercial?
SSG idsman75, U.S. ARMY
**I love the smell of Hoppes #9 in the morning**
No, I ain't sayin' spank Clinton, he might get arroused er sump'n.
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barto
the hard stuff we do right away - the impossible takes a little longer
"A Liberal is a Conservative who hasn't been mugged yet."
Clouder..
Happiness is a warm gun
Edited by - badboybob on 05/04/2002 14:43:15
PC=BS