Phantom Limb Syndrome

Words: 550

Pages: 3

Open Document

1. What is the explanation given for phantom limb syndrome?

The theory is that there is a complete map of the surface of the body inside the brain and that one entire side of the body is mapped to the opposite side. Part of one side of the body is represented on the other side of the brain, along a vertical strip of cortex called the somatosensory cortex. Basically, when a limb is amputated the corresponding part of the brain no longer gets any input and it wants new sensory input. There is a huge reorganization of the sensory pathways in the brain, as if there are wiring crossing in the brain. After a limb amputated and pain is felt in the phantom limb, it is considered a construct of the mind. A brain scan was done on a patient who felt pain on a limb that was amputated, the scan confirmed that new brain pathways were become opened (You can get phantom syndrome in almost any part of the body.)

2. Explain the brain networks involved in blindsight.

Blindsight is seeing something when you are completely blind. Blindsight is consciousness awareness and is being able to detect things without being aware of them. Vision is not entirely since there is a disconnection but you can still actually respond to visual information, it’s the act of being able to visually respond to something. …show more content…
One pathway goes through the eye, then through the thalamus and finally to the visual cortex of the brain (you need the visual cortex to consciously see something); the second pathway goes to the brainstem and eventually to higher centers in the brain with reflexing behavior, so one pathway doesn’t see anything, however, the other pathway is still working; so, when a person uses that pathway at guessing an object that they cannot see, it is unconscious blind sight. Damage to the visual centers can warp a person’s consciousness. Visual input divides it into two streams of

Phantom Limb Syndrome

Ramachandran describes three specific types of syndromes dealing with the brain in his talk video. Capgras syndrome is known as a delusional misidentification of a person that was once easily recognized. Phantom limb syndrome occurs when a person’s arm or leg is amputated and the person still feels pain in the limb. Synesthesia occurs when the simulation of one sensory pathway leads to the second pathway involuntarily. All three of these syndromes include the brain and certain nerves that have either…

Words 635 - Pages 3

Perception In Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat

A neurological disorder known as Phantom limb syndrome which is when there is a sensation from the area of an amputated limb due to the central and peripheral nerves system changes due to the injury as well as from some damage of nerves due to the injury (Phantom Limb, Gales). In one of the stories called `Phantoms` (66-70) deals with a sailor who had cut off his finger. For the next forty years the sailor would continue to feel his phantom finger and would have feelings that it would…

Words 740 - Pages 3

Phantom Limb

Phantom Limb Charlie Glaser The Ohio State University Psychology 3310 Proprioception is the sense of the relative position of a body part. Proprioceptors are located in the striated muscle and joints though out the body. The term was coined as early as 1557 by Julius Caesar Scalinger when studying the position movement of locomotion, but was redefined by Henry Charlton Bastian (1880) and the term kineaesthesia arose. Bastian studied the afferent pathway between the brain and the tendons…

Words 2540 - Pages 11

ap dbq Essay example

mind as his condition degenerated. The Lost Mariner We learn from Jimmie that drinking, especially heavy drinking, really affects our bodies, especially later in our lives. His renegade amnesia was caused by Korsakov’s Syndrome which resulted from the patient’s heavy drinking after he left the navy. I found that his inability to recall the time he spent after 1945 very interesting, and that he could remember everything from his height of glory in the navy vividly, yet had…

Words 893 - Pages 4

Medicine During The Civil War Essay

Of these soldiers, over 30,000 resulted in amputations! Many of these amputations were unnecessary, the surgeons just didn’t know any better. You could have a limb amputated because of gunshot, infections, fractured or broken bones, or other injuries. After an amputation, many complications could arise, like infection, phantom limb syndrome, PTSD, etc. The doctors that performed amputations saved many lives, but also ruined…

Words 402 - Pages 2

Blindness In Malcolm Gladwell's The Power Of Context

forgetting the faces of his parents and the faces of his loved ones and sometimes visualizing men and women without heads or fingers, his inner vision spontaneously started as a sensation of streaming radiance for similar reasons as the medical syndrome of phantom limb. Lusseyran was soon to realize that he was in possession of not just a luminosity but a great visual imagery. He wrote in his memoir that “names, figures, and objects in general did not appear on my screen without shape, nor just in black…

Words 1660 - Pages 7