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Malgorzata Szymanska, PhD Candidate, Cognition and Brain Science, University of Cambridge

Scientists have been wrong about phantom limbs for decades – new study

Brain
22ImagesStudio/Shutterstock.com

Inside every human brain lies a detailed map of the body, with different regions dedicated to different body parts – the hands, lips, feet and more. But what happens to this map when a body part is removed?

For decades, scientists believed that when a body part is amputated, the brain’s body map dramatically reorganises itself, with neighbouring body parts taking over the area once represented by the missing limb.

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