Your Daily Awesome

The most recent research into phantom limbs, conducted by the American neurologist V. S. Ramachandran and popularized in his book Phantoms in the Brain, shows that the phenomenon may be connected to a sort of “artificial man” in the human brain. There is, on the brain’s surface, a map of the body in the awkward shape of a man. The map is known as “the Penfield homunculus.” In the homunculus, the hand and thumb are next to the face. When Ramachandran experimented with a phantom hand patient by lightly rubbing his cheek, the patient confirmed that he felt the rubbing in his missing hand. In other words, in cases of phantom limbs, the brain receives messages in a neighboring area, though that area is not, on the external human body, adjacent. Other patients confirmed this theory. For example, two people reported sensations in their phantom foot when they had sex, and were astonished to discover an explanation for this: in the brain, on the Penfield map, the genitals and the feet are next to each other. “I never suspected,” Ramachandran wryly concludes, “that I would begin seeking an explanation for phantom limbs and end up explaining foot fetishes as well.”

read Gaby Wood’s fascinating article here