ipl-logo

Phantom Limb Research Paper

1710 Words7 Pages

Phantom limbs and pain.
Now I will turn to the “dark side of neuroplasticity”. Phantom limb is a persistent feeling that an amputated or missing limb is still a part of one’s body. It can go away or reappear, people can experience painful, twitching or itching sensations in the phantom limb that they are unable to stop. Scientists believe this to be due to the fact that there is still leftover representation of the amputated organ in the brain. So even though the limb is no longer attached to the body, part of the somatosensory cortex responsible for it still exists, projecting the sensation of the limb past the new body boundaries.
Most of the amputees also experience chronic pain in the limb that seems to be unaffected by painkillers. The sensation is usually that of fingers or toes cramping up or being curled unnaturally. The research on the topic is ongoing and several different theories …show more content…

A group of scientist conducted research on children aged between 2 and 9 months. Researchers showed pictures to infants: the backgrounds were in different colours (red, green, blue and yellow) and had either circles or triangles drawn on in black. If babies did not have synaesthesia, they would observe all the pictures for the same amount of time, regardless of shapes drawn. However, if they saw shapes in specific colour, i.e. one of them always saw circles in green, then that infant would look at a picture of circles on a green background longer, than on a background of any other colour. Observations confirmed the theory. The hypothesis behind the experiment states that everyone is born a synaesthete, but due to changes in the brain cortex as we age, synaptic connections responsible for synaesthesia fall apart. If this is true, it is yet another proof of the immense changes that take place in the brain during our

Show More
Related

Book Report On The Killer Angels By Shaara

994 Words | 4 Pages

“[Ewell] had lost a leg at Manassas and had just recently returned to the army, and he was standing awkwardly balancing himself against the unfamiliar leg… swaying nervously, clutching a fencepost,” (Shaara, 224). He is missing part of his leg, and explains that a minie ball hit his leg “just below the jointed knee” (Shaara, 225); back in the day minie balls were used and could shatter bone, so doctors would render the wound untreatable and amputate the limb it hit. Amputations were very common and done with anesthesia, which was recently made at the time; sometimes they didn’t use it when amputations occurred. When James Longstreet, a lieutenant general, is riding off back to the camp after the first day of the battle, he sees a wagon with many limbs in it. “[Longstreet] passed by a hospital wagon, saw mounded limbs glowing whitely in the dark, a pile of legs, another of arms.

Read More

Phantom Limb Pain Summary

199 Words | 1 Pages

Phantom limb pain cannot just be a reorganization of the somatosensory cortex. My critique of the documentary is that it

Read More

Phantom Limb Pain Research Paper

70 Words | 1 Pages

Phantom Limb Pain. Phantom limb, a common medical issue for amputees, refers to ongoing painful sensations stemming from the location where the limb used to be. About 70 percent of amputee patients experience phantom limb pain and it can be chronic and debilitating. Virtual reality games are used to help alleviate phantom limb pain by picking up on nerve inputs from the brain and using virtual limbs to gain control.

Read More

Summary Of A Prayer For Owen Meany

1669 Words | 7 Pages

The finger was not the only amputation in the story, there was also the arm-less dressmakers dummy, the stuffed armadillo claws that Owen stole, Lydia's missing led, and the sawed off arms of Mary Magdalene. Amputations and the lack of arms became an important motif for two reasons; Owen’s death scene and Owen’s belief that he is “an instrument of God.” It was a bomb that killed Owen, but he did not die right after the explosion. Instead the bomb blew both of his arms into pieces, leaving him like the Mary Magdalene statue and the dummy. The second reason is less literal and more symbolic.

Read More

Object Permanence In Piaget's Cognitive Stage

217 Words | 1 Pages

In Piaget’s cognitive stage, children from birth to the age of two go through this stage. In this stage, infants are developing the ability to coordinate their sensory input with there motor skills. An example would be, when kids are playing with toys and put the toys in their month and feel with their mouth. Infants also develop object Permanence. The object Permanence is when a child recognizes that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible.

Read More

Durin During The Progressive Era

558 Words | 3 Pages

Amputation which often on the battlefield did save lives, because a crushed foot or arm would always lead to a fatal systemic infection, so it was simpler to cut it off other than to try and save it. Having to work very quickly, a very skilled surgeon would cut through the flesh that was saw completely through the bone and apply a piping red hot iron to fix off the stump’s raw surface and stop the bleeding of the cut. Sometimes the entire operation was performed in less than two minutes. By having a limb amputated the mortality risk was about fifty percent. But even with a fifty-fifty chance of living after this surgery was a better chance that most received, because if the person didn’t receive treatment they would most definitely die.

Read More

Medicine Before The Civil War Essay

964 Words | 4 Pages

Since medicine wasn’t advance during the war to give the necessary treatment to the solider for a bullet in their leg or arm surgeons saw amputation as the greatest survival for the solider (“Amputation”). The most amputated limbs were legs and arms (“Amputation”). In the medical tent the surgeons had numerous soldiers coming in with bullets in their limbs or diseases the soldiers have and if amputation was delayed for more than 48 hours there would be blood poisoning, bone infection, or gangrene in the solider (“Amputation”).

Read More

Wassily Kandinsky: The Power Of The Senses

968 Words | 4 Pages

The Power of the Senses A famous Russian artist by the name of Wassily Kandinsky once said that “Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.” Many would would assume this sentence is mere artistic effusion. However, Kandinsky describes a very real condition, known as synesthesia, which can manifest in many different forms, including individuals hearing colors or tasting sounds.

Read More

Cognitive Deficit Hypothesis Examples

1248 Words | 5 Pages

It is found that people are much more likely to find a pattern in random displays when primed to see them. For example, seeing an image of a cat in a random arrangement of dots (van Prooijen, Douglas, & De Inocencio, 2017). This could help us in understanding why some people believe to have seen paranormal or abnormal things, such as objects appearing to move without reason or seeing ghosts in a haunted building if they had previously been told the building is haunted. This would be due to the fact they are expecting to see something abnormal. This could also work as an explanation to pareidolia, seeing faces in inanimate objects or strange places, as our brain is primed or predisposed to see faces, this is commonly seen as a type II error in cognition (Shermer, 2008).

Read More

Post Amputation Essay

912 Words | 4 Pages

Breakey (1997) stated that after amputation that cause the triple loss of ability, perception and physical performance, is not only just a misplacement of a physical limb. Individual who undergo lower limb amputation would need a walking aid, such as a walking stick, a crutch, a wheelchair or a prosthesis to mobilize (Breakey, 1997). Fortunately, there are a few cases that some of the amputees still remain their independence in their daily routine by utilizing their prosthesis, even though massive of obstacles faced by them following low limb amputation (Mac Neill, Pauley, Yudin, 2008). Amputees’ participation in their social activity has a significant change from before as they suffer from the difficulty to walk independently post amputation. Because of this obstacle, people with lower limb amputation often suffer from mentally side effect, for examples, stress, anxiety and depression (Breakey, 1997).

Read More

Definitions Of Imperialism

1432 Words | 6 Pages

It’s bandaged up. He hadn't met his quota earlier that week. He still cradles the stump, not yet adjusted to the fact that his hand is no longer adjoined to his arm. The eldest of your children doesn't talk much either. Not after that night with the officer.

Read More

Essay On Amputation

1103 Words | 5 Pages

Brandt van Soolen RC 522 Amputation Medical and Psychosocial Aspects of Amputation Amputation is the term used to describe the partial or complete loss of a portion of the body. Depending on the reason for amputation, it can impact activities, functions, and psychosocial adjustment. Although the term amputation is commonly associated with the loss of an extremity, it is also used to categorize the loss of other body parts (e.g. an earlobe or parts of the nose from frostbite). Amputation can result from trauma or it may be a surgically procedure utilized in the management of other conditions (e.g. amputating toes or the whole foot in the management of diabetes).

Read More

Teenage Amputees Research Paper

1099 Words | 5 Pages

Abstract-Over the years there has been an increase in the number of teenagers with a deficient upper limb, due to vascular diseases or road traffic accidents. The Stanford University estimates around 2.5 million such amputees in the world currently. By 2050 it shall reach to about 3.5 million. The activities of daily living of these individuals are affected due to the loss of a limb, this hinders their efficiency. Intricate hand movements and the functions are compromised in these amputees.

Read More

Essay On Human Pattern Seeking Animals

1519 Words | 7 Pages

When children in pre-school get crayons and a paper to draw they put down the pattern that is created in their mind. These students use imagination to do so. Few people can recognise and understand the pattern whereas few people cannot, it all depends on

Read More

Five Senses Ability

908 Words | 4 Pages

However, the picture could be a deception where the picture was merely filtered in black and white and the “colored” picture was actually older. Our senses are necessary in gaining intellect as we have our own perceptions through our senses but there are limitations in relying too much on our sense perception. As seen in the example, relying on our senses have a risk of being prone to false conclusions and

Read More

More about Phantom Limb Research Paper

Related Topics

Open Document