Tag Archives: limb

Phantom limb study rewires our understanding of the brain

Phantom limb study rewires our understanding of the brain

Thursday, August 21, 2025 NIH scientists and collaborators reveal the brain preserves its representation of lost limb in clinical study. During MRI scans, participants moved their hand (pre-amputation) or phantom hand (post-amputation), as well as their lips (both before and after). Brain maps of the hand (red) and lips (blue) are shown for two pre-amputation scans (pre1, pre2) and multiple …

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The brain’s map of the body is surprisingly stable — even after a limb is lost

The brain’s map of the body is surprisingly stable — even after a limb is lost

The brain’s map of the body in the primary somatosensory cortex remains unchanged after amputation.Credit: Zephyr/Science Photo Library A brain-imaging study of people with amputated arms has upended a long-standing belief: that the brain’s map of the body reorganizes itself to compensate for missing body parts. Previous research1 had suggested that neurons in the brain region holding this internal map, …

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