Why do people with amputations experience phantom sensations in their amputated limb?
In: Biology
For your entire life from birth until whatever accident cost you your limb, your brain was building up and monitoring nerve connections with that limb. There’s tissue in the brain specifically dedicated to interpreting signals from that limb and sending commands to it.
It’s ready for pain signals, pressure signals, temperature signals, motion, position, acceleration…
But it’s not ready for *no* signal. The brain hardware doesn’t turn off just because you lost the signal, it just sits there like an old TV playing static.
This tissue will be repurposed over time, but while that’s happening you’ll occasionally pick up false signals in that static that feel like something is still there.
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