| Autor: |
Schone HR; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.; Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, National Institutes of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.; Rehab Neural Engineering Labs, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.; Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA., Maimon Mor RO; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.; Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK.; UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, UK., Kollamkulam M; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK., Gerrand C; Department of Orthopaedic Oncology, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, Stanmore, Middlesex, UK., Woollard A; Plastic Surgery Department, Royal Free Hospital NHS Trust, London, UK., Kang NV; Plastic Surgery Department, Royal Free Hospital NHS Trust, London, UK., Baker CI; Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, National Institutes of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA., Makin TR; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.; Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, UK.; MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. |
| Abstrakt: |
Neuroscientists have long debated the adult brain's capacity to reorganize itself in response to injury. A driving model for studying plasticity has been limb amputation. For decades, it was believed that amputation triggers large-scale reorganization of cortical body resources. However, these studies have relied on cross-sectional observations post-amputation, without directly tracking neural changes. Here, we longitudinally followed adult patients with planned arm amputations and measured hand and face representations, before and after amputation. By interrogating the representational structure elicited from movements of the hand (pre-amputation) and phantom hand (post-amputation), we demonstrate that hand representation is unaltered. Further, we observed no evidence for lower face (lip) reorganization into the deprived hand region. Collectively, our findings provide direct and decisive evidence that amputation does not trigger large-scale cortical reorganization. |
