Long-Term Change of Mind

Loss of a limb can cause profound changes in the life of the victim. No less important is a massive reorganization of the brain that accompanies such injuries. Now twopapers report the details of such neural changes in two groups of monkeys with somewhat different deficits, and Merzenich reconciles the different results in his Perspective.

[1]  Á. Pascual-Leone,et al.  Reorganization of human cortical motor output maps following traumatic forearm amputation , 1996, Neuroreport.

[2]  Famous monkeys provide surprising results. , 1991, Science.

[3]  T. Elbert,et al.  Phantom-limb pain as a perceptual correlate of cortical reorganization following arm amputation , 1995, Nature.

[4]  V. Ramachandran,et al.  Perceptual correlates of massive cortical reorganization. , 1992, Science.

[5]  M Hallett,et al.  Physiological analysis of motor reorganization following lower limb amputation. , 1992, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[6]  S. Bandinelli,et al.  Motor reorganization after upper limb amputation in man. A study with focal magnetic stimulation. , 1991, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[7]  J C Rothwell,et al.  Reorganization of cortical blood flow and transcranial magnetic stimulation maps in human subjects after upper limb amputation. , 1994, Journal of neurophysiology.

[8]  W. Haber.  Effects of Loss of Limb on Sensory Functions , 1955 .

[9]  V. Ramachandran,et al.  Acute plasticity in the human somatosensory cortex following amputation , 1998, Neuroreport.

[10]  M. Cynader,et al.  Somatosensory cortical map changes following digit amputation in adult monkeys , 1984, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[11]  V S Ramachandran,et al.  Noninvasive detection of cerebral plasticity in adult human somatosensory cortex. , 1994, Neuroreport.

[12]  M. Mishkin,et al.  Massive cortical reorganization after sensory deafferentation in adult macaques. , 1991, Science.

[13]  E G Jones,et al.  Thalamic and brainstem contributions to large-scale plasticity of primate somatosensory cortex. , 1998, Science.