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eglaser's picture

phantom limb

As we discussed inhibitions and intuition in class I began to think about something called phantom limb sensation and how it could be applied to what were learning. The studydiscussed in this article from Scientific American used physical therapy to help reduce the pain in the lost limb. The article determined that, "...people with pathological pain have distorted maps of the body, or a generalized disinhibition of parts of the brain (reduction of the normal inhibitory control that keeps brain activations in check)."

What makes this find really interesting is that the researchers found that  visualizing the body/ the amputated limb alone can help drastically reduce the phantom limb sensation. "Simply thinking about body parts activates their virtual counterpart—one can’t feel one’s body without using neurons that represent it. Honing in on a particular body part requires inhibitory processes, the loss of which might underpin the extravagant activation patterns that were observed in the pre-training scans."
Phantom limb sensation highlights the importanceof inhibition and intuition in our nervous system.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=phantom-limb-cure-retrain-brain

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