Prosthetic Hand Capable of Delivering Texture Sensations

Zothecula writes: A new prosthetic system allows amputees to feel familiar sensations and also, somewhat unexpectedly, reduces their phantom pain. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center developed the system to reactivate areas of the brain that produce the sense of touch, but recipients of prosthetic hands reported their phantom pain subsiding almost completely after being hooked up to the system.

Comments

Not a medical professional, but:

[kheldan]

Seems to me that when some area of your body doesn't get much or any stimulation for long periods of time, it gets more sensitive. If you lose a limb the associated sensory nerves get zero stimulation, as well as the associated area of the brain. Wouldn't those nerves and that part of your brain 'turn up the gain' and experience more 'noise' in the absence of 'signal' (hence 'phantom pain')? Then you attach something that provides a 'signal' again; 'gain' goes down, S/N ratio goes up?