As though having to lose a limb isn't enough, many people who become amputees also experience so-called 'phantom pain.' In phantom pain, amputees experience sometimes debilitating pain sensations coming from their missing limbs.
Patients report being able to look where their arm or leg should be, see nothing there, and be frustrated over being unable to stop the severe pain.
As many as four in five amputees experience some level of phantom pain, and much of it remains shrouded in mystery.
But now Oxford University researchers are reporting findings from a brain imaging study demonstrating that phantom pain is directly correlated with the strength of the memory imprint of the limb on the brain.
Brain retains memory of missing limb
Specifically, investigators asked subjects to wiggle the fingers from their missing arm while undergoing functional MRI of the brain. In doing so, they got a good look at which part of the brain controlled the phantom hand. Even decades after losing the limb, the brain retains the memory of it.
And the more pronounced the memory in the brain, the higher the self-reported phantom pain would be. Amputees who had the pronounced memory also had brain scans that could not be distinguished between those and scans of a person with two working arms.
Source: Nature Communications
