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I read the short paper linked to the outline of our lecture which basically says that even people born without limbs--not just amputees--have phantom limb syndrome. This implies that we are born with an internal neural map.  So the neurons in the central nervous system that lead out to a hand that was either amputated or never there to begin with 'expect to see' a hand, but they just end at the stump of the limb, which causes the discordance and discomfort.  The important part is that the neurons have this expectation even without amputation. Think about the theory of tabula rasa--when we are born our minds are a clean slate. We know our brains are made out of neurons, like the neurons that go from our central nervous systems out to our hands.  If there is a map for the patterning of neurons from the central nervous system to the hand, wouldn't it follow that there is a map for the neurons in our brains?  Not really a clean slate, is it? There would have to be, considering we are born knowing how to breath, knowing when we're hungry--both processes are mediated by the brain.  But how far does this map extend into the brain? How much is there a map for? If there's a map for a hand that doesn't even exist, is there a map in the brain for connections that still are to be made? These might be questions more appropriate for a developmental biologist, but it's still interesting to consider the extent of our internal neural map.