Thursday, June 18, 2015

Phantoms in the Brain

I am rereading Ramachandran's Phantoms in the brain. It is a fascinating read as he explores the human brain. Phantom limb pain is one of his main focuses. He tries to get to the very essence of phantom limb pain by conducting some very unusual yet logical experiments. He is using phantom limb to understand really understand how we perceive. There are some very curious questions that phantom limbs bring up. Like how do we perceive our hands, feet and limbs. And why do we continue to perceive them after they are gone?

One side phenomena he brought up was the effect of lung cancer surgery with the nails. When you have lung cancer the nails become clubbed. When the cancer is remove the nails become unclubbed while you are on the operating table.

Curious, really curious.