Phineas Gage survived an iron rod through the frontal lobe with intact speech, memory and movement, and his personality changed profoundly. Why did that case reshape thinking about the frontal lobe?

D. Because it showed the frontal lobe supports untested abilities.

Gage mattered because he was normal on everything the nineteenth century knew how to assess, and what changed had never been thought of as a function with a location. The history deserves a caution, the lurid accounts come from a physician writing years later, and he appears to have recovered substantially and driven a stagecoach in Chile.