What Is the Orbitofrontal Cortex?

The orbitofrontal cortex is the prefrontal cortex located just below the frontal lobe. It is the cerebral cortex that covers the orbit (the bony structure that forms the orbit), and is therefore called the orbitofrontal cortex.

Orbitofrontal cortex

The orbitofrontal cortex is the prefrontal cortex located just below the frontal lobe. It covers the orbit (the bony structure that forms the orbit)

The orbitofrontal cortex is located in the prefrontal lobe and receives

The orbitofrontal cortex is the main neural mechanism of human emotion. There is evidence that it is between automatic emotional responses (including acquired and non-acquired)

Injury to the orbitofrontal cortex can lead to severe emotional loss of control. The first and most famous case came from the mid-19th century.

In 1848, 25-year-old Phoenix Gage was a worker on a railroad construction site in Vermont, USA. He is responsible for blasting the rocks. He is on the stone

Image of Phoenix Gage Brain

Drill holes, load explosives, and detonate. One day he was holding a steel drill with a length of nearly one meter, a diameter of 1.25 inches and a weight of 14 pounds (approximately 6 kilograms) to load explosives into the rock. An unexpected spark ignited the explosive and the steel drill penetrated his skull He entered from under the cheekbones, went out from above the brow bone, and flew more than 100 feet in the air to land on the ground behind him. The co-worker who came immediately found that although he had a hole in his head, his words were normal, his thinking was clear, and he felt no pain. He survived, but his behavior and personality changed dramatically.

Before the injury, Gage was a hard-working, responsible, and thoughtful person. He is good at adhering to his plans and has strong execution ability. He was completely changed after being injured, and in the words of his colleagues, "He is no longer Gage." He became restless, rude, impulsive, his emotions burst out of control, and sometimes cursed others with the dirtiest words Can't stand any constraints. He kept making professional plans in his mind and immediately gave up. He can no longer do his previous job after being injured.

Gage's encounter has become a classic case in neuroscience, because this incident shows that individual behavior seems to be determined by will, but the most fundamental determinant is the physiological mechanism.

Gage lost the function of the medial ventral prefrontal cortex and largely damaged its orbitofrontal cortex. The orbitofrontal cortex participates in complex decision-making processes, which in turn involves people's sensitivity to risk, rewards and punishment. Damage to this part of the brain can cause problems with impulse suppression and understanding of the event, just like Gage.