What Is Phantom Limb Pain, Capgras Delusion And Synesthesia? (Video)
In this very interesting video, Vilayanur Ramachandran, the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute, explores how brain damage can reveal the connection between the internal structures of the brain and the corresponding functions of the mind.
Firstly he talked about the Capgras delusion, where head-damaged people, who are otherwise perfectly normal, believe their family members have been replaced with imposters.
He then talked about paralysed phantom limb pain. A phantom limb is a continual sensory experience of the presence of a missing limb even after amputation. In fact one might experience a phantom anywhere, even within the inner part of the body.
He has developed a simple $3 tool made of a mirror and a cardboard box, which can relief excruciating phantom limb pain by using the reflection of the normal limb to get a visual feedback to the brain to un-learn a paralysis.
In the last part, he touched on synesthesia where people hear color or smell sounds. Synesthesia is eight times more likely common in artists, poets and novelists.
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