body image

FOLLOWING the surgical removal of a body part, amputees often report sensations which seem to originate from the missing limb. This is thought to occur because the brain's model of the body (referred to as the body image) still contains a representation of the limb, and this leads to the experience that the missing limb is still attached to their body. Occasionally, amputees say that they cannot move their phantom limbs - they are perceived to be frozen in space, apparently because they cannot be seen. Yet, research shows that the body image is malleable and easily manipulated. And according…
It goes without saying that we are capable of noticing changes to our bodies, but it's perhaps less obvious that the way we perceive our bodies can affect them physically. The two-way nature of this link, between physicality and perception, has been dramatically demonstrated by a new study of people with chronic hand pain. Lorimer Moseley at the University of Oxford found that he could control the severity of pain and swelling in an aching hand by making it seem larger or smaller. Moseley recruited 10 patients with chronic pain in one of their arms and asked them to perform a series of ten…