Researchers Identify Phantom Limb Brain Activity 165
mmmscience writes "Researchers in Switzerland think they had identified the regions of the brain responsible for creating phantom limbs and the senses that go along with them. Scientists studied a stroke victim who claimed that the phantom limb of her now-paralyzed left arm could do a number of things a normal limb could do, including 'scratch an itch on her head, with an actual sense of relief.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
mental imagery in practice (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:But what Slashdotters really need to know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anything that you have physically experienced once can be replicated with enough focus and mental dedication.
For lay people, the number of times they engaged in the activity with the now absent limb should impact the ability to recreate the sensations assuming they use an entry-level, single-instance recursion method for manifestation. This method would involve identifying one remembered masturbatory experience, and then recursing on the memory - initially focusing on one aspect of sense memory (ie: olfactory, visual, etc..), and adding sense detail with each iteration.
It should be noted that persons not already suffering from socialization issues should avoid cultivating the ability to completely self-satisfy, as this can lead to all sorts of socialization issues.
Re:mental imagery in practice (Score:5, Interesting)
Could be useful (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that they've found it, I'd like to see if they could - though I understand such specific manipulation is no doubt a long way off - work on a way to stimulate the area artificially. The ability to build controllable phantom limbs could be of great use for interacting with virtual realities. Imagine, while still having full control of your senses and limbs, being able to walk around a second entirely separate world with an entirely separate body; a lucid, computer-assisted daydream, essentially.
Re:Like Gil "The Arm" (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd guess no. I believe it was V.S. Ramachandran who demonstrated that he could fool the brain into getting rid of phantom limb pain by using mirrors so that the visual system interpreted the remaining limb as being the missing limb (which leads into questions about blind people and phantom limbs, for which I don't have the answer and am too lazy to look it up). If one had an appendage that looked like an arm doing the things the brain was commanding the arm to do(and possibly requiring some tactile feedback as well), the brain would probably just interpret that appendage as the missing limb instead of creating a representation as a 3d arm.
Or I could be totally wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.
A serious question (Score:5, Interesting)
Do male to female transexuals get phantom erections after the operation?
Old news. I have a better link about Phantom Limbs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:mental imagery in practice (Score:4, Interesting)
You might find Phantoms in the Brain [google.com] an interesting read. One of the items he mentions is that scratching an area near the missing limb in terms of the part of the brain responsible for interpreting its signals may allow one to scratch an itch in a phantom.
Re:A serious question (Score:1, Interesting)
Erm.. not to invalidate who you are or anything, but are you sure SRS was for you? I mean, your subconscious insisting you have body parts which are no longer there must be ... tiring.
Would you do it again, knowing what you know now about your subconscious body image? Did you feel that society would not consider you to be fully female with a penis?
(I really really hope I'm not being insulting or anything; I'm being genuinely curious here...)
Very sure SRS was for me - I feel so much better now and, er, the sex is fantastic. :-}
And I absolutely would do it again, in a heartbeat. I didn't have SRS for society, I had it for me.
My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner.
Re:Randi again. . ? Oh my! (Score:3, Interesting)
In short, if you want to know, go look; nobody is going to go to the trouble of providing anything for you if you can't be bothered to invest the energy to put in the requisite work through exploring. If you don't want to know, then carry on as you are.
I'm one of those people who really, really wants magic to be real. Sadly, I'm not an idiot, and so I can't just wish upon a star and then tell myself it worked - I have to actually try and test it. Every single time I've found something that looks like it *might* be working, any remotely rigorous testing shows it's just imagination and confirmation bias.
Hell, at one stage my Dad was insisting he could feel peoples' auras by waving his hands around. This went on for months until I finally stood in front of him, made him close his eyes, and then told him to show me exactly where my aura was, by feel. He'd pretty confidently found it by a minute later, by which time I was on the other side of the room.
If anyone could do anything remotely genuine in the paranormal sense then solving a trivial problem like "read what's in the envelope in my pocket" would net them an easy million. I can't see a single non-bullshit reason not to claim such a prize... if you genuinely can.
Even weirder... (Score:1, Interesting)
I once experienced something almost exactly like a phantom limb. After an episode of sleep paralysis laying on the couch on the third floor of my university library, I suddenly regained control of my arms. I was unable to open even my eyes...but I had complete control of my hands and arms. Eventually I reached up and touched my face, only to discover that there was no opposite sensation from the skin on my face. I was able to feel my hair and the features of my face, but my face felt as if it had been completely numbed.
Eventually I was able to force my eyelids open, and to my complete amazement...my arms were laying crossed across my chest in the same position they were in when I fell asleep. I was able to "move" them across my field of vision, but they remained motionless on my chest. The whole experience lasted a minute or two and was strangle not unpleasant, unlike all of the sleep paralysis episodes I have.
Has anyone hear heard of such a thing? Sleep paralysis is well documented, but I have never been able to find anything similar to what I have described here.
Re:Randi again. . ? Oh my! (Score:5, Interesting)
So, aside from your word, which is nothing short of one big "Citation Needed", I'm going to see "1 (one) million dollars, verified in a bank account, just waiting to be had", along with a sensible set of rules that should be absolutely no problem at all for anyone having a talent of this kind, and conclude that you are either scorned because you failed it, or just incapable of understanding others might be a tad cynical of those who come with extraordinary claims.
And this is exactly how I felt about things as well until I went to explore the claims and counter-claims surrounding Randi.
Clearly, you have not done this. Why?
--That's a rhetorical "Why?" which I answered in my previous post. Citations are useful and they are out certainly available, but you are not asking for one; you are challenging with a chin-jutting attitude. What does this say about what you really want?
What do I 'win' by convincing you, other than perhaps your respect and that of society's in general? The thing is, I no longer crave society's respect (and certainly not yours) due to the work I have done in re-writing the programming in my own mind. --The combative "Jury Box" system of truth discernment is a feature of our world which has been sold to us through television with the broad suggestion that it can and should be applied in all instances including the scientific forum, but this is not the case. Here's an interesting fact: Many of the forces which exist beyond the walls of 'official culture' have to do with one's state of consciousness, and can be affected and indeed blocked through an application of intent and strong will. If you don't want to see something, then in a surprising number of cases, it is entirely possible to trick yourself into not seeing it. You can even prevent others from seeing. There are a vast number of phenomenon like this.
As for the win/lose method of knowledge distribution. . .
I've already 'won' by increasing my knowledge. Yow win nothing by fortifying ignorance. But we are taught that "Winning = Not Getting the Ego Bruised". "Being Wrong" has been attached with a powerful negative emotional cost hammered into us all through an education system which pitted children against one another through the tactic of age segregation. Age segregation makes it so that leaders are not readily found within groups, thus increasing the competition among children to very high levels while never allowing for a clear 'winner'. One result is that of, "Jocks v.s. Geeks". --The result being a shell-shocked geek community which grows into adulthood with deeply set baggage wrt losing face in any kind of contest. Thus the attaining of knowledge comes in at a distant second to being Right At All Cost. (And when I say, "Right" I do not mean, "Factually Correct". I mean "In line with the official version".) --The age segregation and the combat it forces children to undergo makes knowledge given by authority figures (like the TV) the only safe way of accumulating data because the data given is not accompanied by a sense of guilt or defeat in not previously knowing, but rather a warm-fuzzy feeling. So if you can control the media, and you also control the knowledge stream because the population will police itself, allowing no new knowledge to arise from its peers. The only thing geeks are allowed to say is simply a repetition of what TV's and various other globally recognized media authority figures have stated as being 'true'.
-FL
Re:Randi again. . ? Oh my! (Score:3, Interesting)
Listen, feel free to believe in anything you like. I'm not stopping you in any way. I'm not even demanding you to prove your beliefs true. The original poster started talking about science, however, and that's when I do start asking for results reproduced by independent parties.
The poster I was responding to brought James Randi into the equation. James Randi is not a man of science.
I'm as fascinated by the scientific method as you are, but I do think it is important to distinguish between real science and 'cult of science'. There are very few scientists out there who are not corrupted by discriminatory and prejudicial belief systems. Further, science is severely limited in the exploration of certain phenomena due to the nature of consciousness.
Consider: If a force exists which is capable of being neutralized through the unconscious intent and will of observers who do not want to see it, then how do you measure it? I've never seen an experiment performed which takes this question into account.
Yes, it sounds as silly as, "I'm invisible, but only when nobody is looking," but it is still an entirely valid question. Science will be limited until it knows how to answer this.
-FL