Phineas Gage, the feral child & the unresponsive bystanders

Here's some more neurohistory from the Beeb: following on from last week's episode of In Our Time, which featured a discussion about the history of the brain, is the BBC Radio 4 series Case Study, which looks at - yes, you've guessed it - individual case studies that have made significant contributions to neuroscience and psychology.

In the third episode of the series, which airs tomorrow at 11am GMT is now online, presenter Claudia Hammond discusses the famous case of railroad worker Phineas Gage, who sustained frontal lobe damage and consequently experienced personality changes, and talks to patients at a British neurorehabilitation centre who have brain injuries similar to Gage's. (I've also written about the incredible case of Phineas Gage.)

In previous episodes, Hammond examines the cases of Victor, a 12-year-old boy, who in the year 1800 emerged "naked and behaving like a wild animal" from the woods in the Aveyron district of southern France, and Kitty Genovese, who was murdered outside her New York apartment in 1964, even though 37 of her neighbours heard her cries for help during the 30-minute attack. Genovese exemplifies the unresponsive bystander effect, whereby no-one gives help because everbody assumes that someone else will act.

(Thanks, yet again, to Ross)