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Phantom Limb Experiment

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Phantom limbs are a phenomenon that those with missing limbs, either amputated or born without, experience. Phantom limbs can make the person with the missing limb feel as if there are movements, paralysis, or pain where the limb use to be or should be. The intended purpose of the experiments that were done is to explain previously unexplored subjects pertaining to the plasticity of the normal human brain. Researchers were interested in a variety of patients, focusing a lot of their interest in patients who faced paralysis in their phantom limb – being unable to move it prior to loosing the limb or because of limb loss. Some patients experienced involuntary movements in their phantom limb, the most common being the clenching spasm. The clenching …show more content…
Prior the experiments a neurological work-up was done on all of the participants to make sure they neurologically intact (Ramachandran, 1995). The experiment was initially of interest when conducted on just one person, but this experiment was comprised of 10 people (including the one that sparked initial interest in the idea). To simulate a limb that participants could see in place of their missing limb, researches constructed a virtual reality box. The box was constructed by place a 2” by 2” mirror vertically in the middle of a card board box, keeping the top open so the participant can see in (Ramachandran, 1995). The patient would then place both arms on either side of the box while looking into the mirror, this creates an illusion that the phantom limb has been resurrected (Ramachandran, …show more content…
Found as well was that using a mirror to perpetuate a limb demonstrates that modules in the brain that are concerned with vision and perception interact more that previously assumed (Ramachandran, 1995). Finally, the box could potentially provide use in being a new tool to explore inter-sensory effects involving phantom limbs (Ramachandran, 1995). Only one out of the 10 patients was not able to control his phantom. Advancement in nine out of ten patients serves as a good reflection of what a simple mirror image of a limb can do in terms of tricking the

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