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“Anomalous” Representations and Perceptions: Implications for Human Neuroplasticity

  • Conference paper
Neuronal Plasticity: Building a Bridge from the Laboratory to the Clinic

Part of the book series: Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences ((NEUROSCIENCE))

Summary

Changes in the perception and representation of the body observed in brain damaged and amputee patients hint at the plastic nature of the body schema. Evidence for integration of external objects into the body schema comes from a woman with a large right-hemisphere stroke who affirmed that the paralysed left hand was not her own but belonged to someone else. Although able to see and describe the rings she had worn for years and was currently wearing on her left, now disowned hand, this patient resolutely denied their ownership. By contrast, she had no difficulties in recognising these rings as her own when they were shifted to her right hand, or displayed by the examiner in front of her. Similarly, she promptly acknowledged ownership of other personal belongings that in her previous experience had not been ordinarily associated with the left hand (e.g., a comb). Complex dynamic aspects of the body schema are also revealed by the recent evidence in limb or breast amputees that vivid phantom sensations can arise as a result of tactile stimulations applied to body regions distant from the amputation line. Sensations in the phantom hand, for example, can be elicited by tactile stimuli delivered to the lower face on the side of the amputation. Like the concurrent veridical facial sensations, the evoked phantom sensations may convey precise information about different features of the facial stimuli. Given the representional contiguity of face and hand, phantom hand sensations from facial stimulation are probably caused by an appropriation of the original somatosensory representation of the lost hand by sensory inputs inherent to the adjacent face representation.

The representation of the body, however, has some aspects of stability. Observations in amputees indicate, for example, that phantom perceptions may persist over decades, thus suggesting that parts of the brain may be quasi-permanently committed to the representation of a given body part. In the same vein, stimulation of the somatosensory cortex in amputees who do not feel any phantom perceptions may resurrect the phantom limb even 25 years after the amputation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche e della Visione, Sezione di Fisiologia Umana, Universìta’ di Verona, Italy

    S. Aglioti

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  1. S. Aglioti
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cognitive Neuroscience Section, Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 5C205, 10 Center Drive MSC 1440, Bethesda, MD, 20892-1440, USA

    J. Grafman Ph.D.

  2. Pour la Recherche Thérapeutique, Fondation IPSEN, 24, rue Erlanger, 75781, Paris Cedex 16, France

    Yves Christen Ph.D.

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York

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Aglioti, S. (1999). “Anomalous” Representations and Perceptions: Implications for Human Neuroplasticity. In: Grafman, J., Christen, Y. (eds) Neuronal Plasticity: Building a Bridge from the Laboratory to the Clinic. Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59897-5_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59897-5_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64172-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-59897-5

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