FOR YEARS a very high-ranking Salvation Army officer,
married to a clergyman, suffered under the agonies of conviction
that she had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. As a result
she was completely incapacitated. Finally, she underwent a brain
operation (lobotomy) that cut the communication between the frontal
lobes and the rest of her brain. After surgery she was quite silent
until one of her physicians asked, "How are you now? What
about the Holy Ghost?"
Smiling strangely, she replied, "Oh, the Holy Ghost; there is no Holy Ghost.
"What Are the Frontal Lobes?
The frontal lobes are that part of the brain that is above the eyes, immediately behind the forehead, and extends backward to the front of the ears. They make up the largest part of the central nervous system and distinguish man from animals more than does any other feature of brain anatomy.1 As else where in the brain, the outer surface of the frontal lobes is gray in color (when preserved) and is called the cortex. It is composed of billions of brain cells. Here the most delicate electrical processes, as well as the highest levels of control over other activities of the nervous system, take place.
Forty per cent of the cortex of our en tire brain is in the frontal lobes. From the cortex, communicating fibers pass as "white matter" to other cells both here and in other parts of the brain. Of particular significance is the recent discovery that nerves from the frontal cortex go directly to the hypothalamus, a part of the brain highly involved with certain grosser emotions and appetite and other life-sustaining functions.2 It takes as much as twenty-five to thirty years to complete the development of the frontal lobes. How important that we learn all we can about the function and care of this most vital area.
Phineas Gage, genial and respected railroad foreman, struck blow after blow with a large iron rod that he was using to tamp dynamite. Suddenly Phineas struck hard flint. A deafening explosion rocketed the tamping iron out of his hands, into his skull just below the left eye, out the top of his head and a long way down the track, where it landed covered with blood.
Phineas was able to walk to the doc tor's office with some assistance. It is a tribute to all who had any part in his care that he recovered, for knowledge and facilities for care of such injuries were much less sophisticated in the 1800's than they are today. But after the healing of his wound, Phineas was no longer Phineas. Formerly a man noted for his dependability and deep love for his family, he became "irreverent, irascible, and irresponsible." Running out on his wife and family, he skipped to South America, where he existed in a whirl of wine, women, and song.
What happened to Phineas? His lower or animal nature was apparently unimpaired by this tragic accident. His mechanical skill remained. But reverence, love for family, judgment, and other attributes we treasure infinitely more than physical prowess or intellectual attainment were gone. His frontal lobes were ruined.
Other Frontal-Lobe Injuries
After World War I, Dr. Feuchtwanger studied four hundred soldiers with shrapnel wounds of the brain.3 In two hundred the frontal lobes had been damaged; in the other two hundred, the injury involved other parts of the brain. He found that the men with frontal-lobe injuries had impairment of will and sense of values.
In the fifties, brain surgeons found that if the fibers connecting the frontal lobe of a mentally disturbed person were severed, the patient became docile, tractable, easily managed. He still knew who and where he was, and his memory for past events was not damaged. But judgment, tenderness, responsibility, ability to act in a way most appropriate to the circumstances, and capacity to choose to live in a manner consistent with previously valued moral and spiritual principles were compromised. He became less like a human being with innate power and sense of responsibility of choosing his concepts and behavior, and more like a brilliant animal to be trained to cooperate with another's choice of behavior.
J. P. vividly illustrates the mysterious power of the frontal lobe. He walked and talked at one year of age. Through out a period of many years his IQ performance was rated 95-105, which indicates average mental ability. At 2 1/2 years of age he began to run away from home. The police would find him miles from home and bring him back. In spite of multiplied spankings he kept on running away. His first schoolteacher was so charmed by his politeness that she wrote a letter to his mother complimenting him on his behavior. Just as she was finishing the note, J. P. appeared, partially naked, and behaved in a most undesirable manner.
After psychotherapy was tried extensively without effect, the youngster was sent to a parochial high school. He ran away again and was sent to a military school in another State. There he stole a teacher's car and vanished.
One night J. P. took a girl to a hotel for dinner. While she was in the powder room, he vanished with her purse, and fled to another State.
Not until he was 19 did anyone suspect the real problem. A brain X-ray revealed a highly abnormal condition. Exploratory surgery discovered two large cysts with some fluid in them, where his frontal lobes ought to be. On the left there was a little bit of degenerated brain tissue on the right there was none.
Some time after this surgery, J. P. pawned his mother's ring, took his uncle's car, and absconded to Chicago. As a result he was sent to a State hospital, but soon escaped and traveled to Colorado. Confined to a closed ward in an other State hospital, he did acceptable work under close supervision. With his usual courtesy and winning manners he soon won confidence then walked out!
J. P.'s reading, language, and spelling skills were satisfactory, but his math was always poor. He had few friends of either sex, and as a child was heartily disliked by the boys of the neighbor hood. Seldom, if ever, did he cry, even when severely punished. Psychological testing revealed that his ability to plan ahead was deficient, although he had average intelligence and superior mechanical ability. He was extremely polite. His conversation was conforming; behavior was characteristically inconsistent, bizarre, and even impulsive. He would drive automobiles in the direction they were headed until he ran out of gas.
Physically, J. P. was an alert, responsive, talkative young man of sturdy, athletic build, with prominent protrusions in the sides of his forehead, covering the cysts. Apparently these large cysts and the terrible resulting compromise of frontal-lobe function in his brain prevented adequate development of character and personality. He showed neither great enthusiasms nor periods of dejection or discouragement. He was never known to show any feeling that might be considered one of positive joy. He seemed detached from "anything that gave meaning to life, love, friend ship, comradeship . . . indeed a veritable stranger in this world with no other world to flee to for comfort." His "ability to take advantage of the lessons of experience is severely limited." 4
Dramatic Change in Personality
Then there was Pauline. Dr. Petrie, who has written an entire book about the relationship between personality and the frontal lobes, tells of her conversation with Pauline before lobotomy.
DOCTOR: What is the thing to do if you lose a watch you have borrowed from a friend?
PAULINE: Tell her. I expect you would have to pay for the loss of it.
After lobotomy the doctor repeated the question.
DOCTOR: What is the thing to do if you lose a watch you have borrowed from a friend?
PAULINE: Borrow another watch.
From her study of many patients both before and after lobotomy, Dr. Petrie found that when "the neural connections in the front of the brain, that is, in the frontal lobes, are severed . . . the individual shows a dramatic change in personality, in temperament, character, and ability. . . . The patient after leucotomy (or lobotomy) is more satisfied with himself, with his capacities, with his style of living and style of writing, and is less preoccupied with getting things just right; his standards have dropped." 5
Dr. Vernon Mountcastle mentions "drastic changes in personality . . . after compromising the frontal lobes." 6
A current leading brain scientist of Russia, Dr. Luria, in his book The Working Brain, called the frontal lobes "a superstructure above all other parts of the cerebral cortex so that they perform a more universal function of general regulation of behavior." 7
He further mentions that damage to certain parts of the frontal lobe has been associated with reduced initiative, irrational emotional outbursts, and gross changes in character.
It is amazing how little is lost of a person's ability to do well on ordinary IQ tests, even when damage is done to large areas of his frontal lobes. Al though there may be decrease in ability to reason abstractly and to make lofty generalizations, none of the research done so far has resulted in placing the seat of ordinary intelligence in the frontal lobes.
Results of Frontal Lobotomies
Dr. Gosta Rylander, as professor of forensic psychiatry at the Royal Caro line Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, studied in depth a number of patients who had undergone frontal lobotomies. Not only did he give them psychological tests he lived and worked with them in some cases for more than two years. Most impressive to Dr. Rylander of all postoperative changes were those involving personality, character, and that spark which most truly identifies the individual. He reports these evaluations made by relatives of his patients:
"I have lost my husband. I'm alone. I must take over responsibilities now.
""She is my daughter but yet a different person. She is with me in body but her soul is in some way lost. Those deep feelings, the tendernesses are gone. She is hard, somehow.
""Doctor, you have given me a new husband. He isn't the same man.""His soul appears to be destroyed." (Wife, speaking of her husband's behavior.)
A formerly conscientious and efficient operating-room nurse could perform only subordinate work. "I don't care if I make a mistake; it will turn out all right in the end."
One woman who had loved classical music now cared only for dance tunes.
Dr. Rylander says, "The patients themselves behave in the most perfect way at the examinations. They are smiling, polite, answer the questions rapidly and openly, and say that they are very pleased with the results, that everything is all right and that they have not altered. But questioned in detail, they will explain that they forget things and that they have lost many of their interests. The more introspective of them may allege that they are unable to feel as before. They can feel neither real happiness nor deep sorrow. Some thing has died within them." 8
One is forcefully reminded of the portrayal of Satan as given by Ellen White in Early Writings, page 152: "I was shown Satan as he once was, a happy, exalted angel. Then I was shown him as he now is. He still bears a kingly form. His features are still noble, for he is an angel fallen. But the expression of his countenance is full of anxiety, care, un- happiness, malice, hate, mischief, deceit, and every evil. That brow which was once so noble, I particularly noticed. His forehead commenced from his eyes to recede. I saw that he had so long bent himself to evil that every good quality was debased, and every evil trait was developed." (See also page 145.)
The "sealing in the forehead" mentioned by Ezekiel and John provides a perspective from the Scriptures that is pertinent and challenging in the light of our study on the frontal lobe.
What Can Be Done?
What can be done to preserve and strengthen the frontal lobes? Because they were made for great principles, noble motives, and unselfish plans, it re quires a lifetime of cooperation, culture, balanced education, and refreshing inspiration to do them justice.
There is no higher, better, more interesting, and truly enlightening way to build up the frontal lobes than regular study of the Bible. This should begin in childhood as parents adapt its stories to the readiness and growing potential of the child. Later in life the sweep and the power, the depth and the grandeur, of this Book should be unfolded to the maturing student.
Any function of the body that is not used becomes weak (atrophies). Even the bones of astronauts lose some of their minerals when they aren't used enough. The law of atrophy of disuse applies to the whole body, including the brain. If spiritual and moral enrichment is not provided, might it be that atrophy of disuse could eventually produce lobotomy of disuse?
Conventional education deals predominantly with the part of the brain that is for information storage. Character education is too often neglected. True education of the whole man spiritual, mental, and physical re quires careful balance of inputs to all parts of the brain and involves regular, concerted effort by parents, teachers, and particularly Spirit-filled ministers in helping to cultivate and enrich the finest soil of the human brain, the frontal lobes.
By consistent wholesome living, by zestful worship of a loving Creator, by creative reflection, by kind endeavor, and by the sustained reception of miracle-working grace, this inner chamber of the human temple may be fitted for receiving the seal of the Living God.
1 Elizabeth C. Crosby, et al., Correlative Anatomy, of the Nervous System (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962)."
2 Walle J. H. Nauta, "Neural Associations of the FrontalCortex," Acta Neurobiol. Exper. (Warsaw, 1972), 32(2):125- 140.
3 E. Feuehtwanger, "Functionen des Stirnhirns, ihre Pa- thologie und Psychologic." Monogr. aus Geset, Neural. Psychiat., O. Foerster and K. Williams, eds., Heft 38 (Berlin: Springer-Verlag OHG, 1923), 4-194.
4 S. S. Ackerly. A case of paranatal bilateral frontal lobe defect observed for thirty years. In Warren and Akert, The Frontal Granular Cortex and Behavior (New York: McGraw- Hill Book Company, 1964), pp. 192-218.
5 Asenath Petrie, Personality and the Frontal Lobes (New York: The Blakiston Company, 1952).
6 Vernon B. Mountcastle, ed., Medical Physiology, vol. 1, 13th ed. (St. Louis: The C. V. Mosby Co., 1974), p. 367.
7 A. R. Luria, The Working Brain, An Introduction to Neuropsychology (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publ., 1973), pp. 89, 223. (Entire book highly significant, 398 pp.)
8 Gosta Bylander, "Personality Analysis Before and After Frontal Lobotomy," in The Frontal Lobes. Proceedings of the Association, Dec. 12 and 13, 1947 (New York: Hafner Publish ing Co., Inc., 1966), 901 pp. (facsimile of 1948 ed.).