Frontal Lobe Damage Symptoms and the Mind/Brain Connection
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Here we will explore what happens when the frontal lobe is damaged and how we can make a mind/brain connection
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2017-11-19T12:23:10-08:00
Growing up, Greg did well in school and was quite a rebel, but this changed when he acquired a large midline tumor that damaged his frontal lobe. The biggest change that people observed was that he had virtually no memories of events after 1970. Memory loss is a common symptom with frontal lobe damage because it is believed that the frontal lobe organizes memory for other parts of the brain. However, most of the time only working memory is affected, which is the memory that is involved in temporarily storing the information required to carry out tasks like as processing of info. In more severe cases such as this one, retrograde amnesia, or the inability to remember events that occurred before an injury, can also occur. For example, when Sacks was asking Greg about the his favorite band, The Grateful Dead, Sacks recalled that he could remember all the founding members' names, but he did not remember that they were all dead, an event that occurred before his injury (48).
Another thing that resulted because of the tumor is blindness. However, the odd thing about this is that Greg had no awareness of his blindness. Sacks stated that while watching TV, he would listen to the sounds, and believe that he was actually watching TV by creating his own visual images even though that he was blind (49). This is an unusual symptom called anosognosia, which is defined as the lack of awareness of your illnesses. This symptom can be misunderstood as the patient being in denial, but in reality it is a neurological disorder which the patient has no control over. In Greg's case, no matter how many times someone told him that he couldn't really see the television, he would not be convinced.
One more thing thing that people noticed was that if he was left alone, he would go into a half-awake dreamlike state. This lack of initiation or motivation is a common symptom. In mild cases, the patient might seem less interested or enthusiastic about what is going on around them. In the more severe cases, the patient might sit or lie in bed, staring into space, and not do anything unless significantly prompted or assisted by someone. Unfortunately, Greg fell into this category.
Individually, each of these symptoms can potentially be dealt with. However, with all these symptoms put together, frontal lobe damage can appear to change a person’s personality, and change them into a completely different person.
Now that we know what frontal lobe damage is and how it can affect an individual, what can it tell us about the mind and brain? Based on the symptoms that come with this condition, it appears the the frontal lobe directly relates to consciousness. Consciousness is commonly defined as the awareness and perception of one’s surroundings. Each one of Greg’s symptoms affected either his awareness or perception of the world around him. With his retrograde amnesia, he was unable to recall any events after 1970, so although he may have been able to converse normally, he had no awareness of the world around him. This lack of awareness is also supported by his lack of initiation, since he struggled to stay aware of the world around him when he was left alone. Additionally, his perception of the world around him and even himself was affected because of anosognosia. For example, his perception that he was not blind went against the fact that he was blind. Through these symptoms, it can be seen that the consciousness is directly affected by damage to the frontal lobe.
