Brain fooled into feeling fake hand

Tim Radford
Friday July 2, 2004
The Guardian

Scientists have caught the brain in the act of "feeling" a hand it does not have - by using a rubber hand. The confirmation could throw fresh light on phantom limb syndrome reported by amputees.
Henrik Ehrsson, of University College London, and colleagues from Oxford report in Science Express online that although the brain's premotor cortex coordinates vision, touch and a sense of position, vision dominates. They proved it by teasing volunteers into believing that they could "feel" a rubber hand. Volunteers hid their right hands beneath a table while a rubber hand was placed in front of them at an angle that suggested it could be part of the body. Both rubber and hidden hands were stroked while researchers observed a brain scan. On average, within 11 seconds, the volunteers started to feel the rubber hand belonged to them.

Wild!

I had seen a story where a man had lost a hand while it was clenched tight. He had pain all the time. So some clever doctor put his remaining hand in a box with a mirror in it. Then asked the man to unclench his remaining hand while watching the mirror hand and his brain was fooled into thinking his missing hand was unclenched. Thus alleviating the pain

I saw that same thing Bap. Was on Scientific American Frontiers.

Was a cool and extremely thought provoking episode.