Phantom Limb Pain Analysis

Words: 526
Pages: 3
Open Document
Phantom limb pain occurs when an amputee is experiencing pain in their amputated limb, receiving sensations of pain as if the corresponding limb is still there. This is because of the brain getting neural messages that used to be associated with that limb. This is an intriguing phenomenon associated with phantom limbs because it demonstrates that neural plasticity can still occur in adults and not just children.

After an amputation, input from the face starts to stimulate the hand in S1. In Ramachandran’s paper, his team tested amputees and found that they felt their phantom limb was being touched whenever their face was touched, but did not feel the same when other parts of their body were touched. This showed that the hands and lower face …show more content…
Visual feedback of the superimposed hand provides some sensation of movement in the phantom limb (Imaizumi et al., 2014). The movement done with a phantom limb yields “sensory feedback” if it is temporally matched in S1 (Imaizumi et al., 2014).

This is interesting because this is an example of how plasticity occurs in adults, and that the brain is constantly remapping. Without any sensory feedback from the amputated arm, the brain will continue sending signals in a positive feedback loop and continue sending sensations of pain. With the mirror method proposed by Ramachandran, the superimposed arm sends feedback to the brain allowing the pain in some amputees to go away. I also found this interesting because it shows that pain can also be psychologically induced, and just because a imb is missing does not indicate the absence of pain.

It would be interesting to look at other possibilities to get rid of pain besides the use of a mirror, such as using TMS to temporarily disable the area of the brain that is giving them pain and if their pain disappears, then possibly lesioning that area in the brain corresponding to the pain in the limb to abolish the pain and see if nearby synapses would take over. However, this method is very invasive. Are there other less invasive ways to get rid of phantom limb pain? Some patients have experienced the pain coming back, is there any way to use drugs to prevent the neural messages in the brain from sending pain signals as if the amputated limb is still
Show More

Related Documents: Phantom Limb Pain Analysis

Zevin's Objectification Of Women

Clothing can amplify women’s objectification, resulting in negative perceptions, which is also applicable in literature. For instance, in Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, objectification negatively affects the supporting female characters. Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (hereafter Tomorrow) is primarily about how Sadie and Sam’s friendship evolves through playing and creating video games as well as their relationships with their family, friends, and romantic partners…

Words 3666 - Pages 15

The Epithet in the Novel "Jane Eyre" Essay example

given first of all to a stylistic problematics, to consideration of usage of such stylistic device as an epithet. We will analyse the work “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte and will chose the most interesting types and examples of epithets for the analysis of them. CHAPTER I :THEORETICAL BACKGRAOUND OF THE EPITHET ITS NATURE AND DEFINITION 1.1General Notes on Style and Stylistics. ''The concept of style means unity of the word and image, image and a composition, composition and ideas of poetic…

Words 18865 - Pages 76