A new study has found that stroke victims, or persons suffering from neurological damage other than amputation, experience the sensation of phantom limb far more often than previously thought. Daniel Antoniello, MD, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, and fellow researchers from the University of Colorado Denver, School of Medicine; University of Florida, Gainesville; and New York University, New York, discovered that 27 of 50 post-stroke patients had experienced phantom limb sensations, many on a daily basis.
Some of the subjects reported moving to adjust their position in bed, only to discover their arm was underneath them instead of beside them; others reported feeling their fingers or toes wiggling when they were not.
Under reportage by patients experiencing phantom limb sensations may be the result of a fear of “being labeled ‘crazy’ and [therefore patients] are less likely to report these sensations than other symptoms,” Anoniello was quoted as saying in the October 2010 issue of Cortex.”The study sheds light on how the phenomenal experience of one’s body can be altered after neurological damage,” Antoniello said. “Remarkably, some of these individuals are able to control their phantom limbs with near total volition. This report has identified a group of patients that provide a valuable opportunity to explore how the brain constructs the conscious perception of the body.”
