What is the cause of phantom pain?

Answer 1

Phantom pain is pain you feel when you have an amputated limb. Phantom pain is most common 3-6 months after surgery. There are cures for phantom pain one called the mirror therapy. A lot of doctors thought phantom pain was a psychological problem but experts now know that all comes from the brain and the spinal cord.

Answer 2

There are three different theories that people used to explain phantom pains

1) Stress and shock in the body caused phantom pains, along with ghosts. This theory was abandoned when more research was available.

Reasons two and three are based on actual information.

2) Central cause: this means changes in the brain (specifically in the cortex/thalamus). Let me explain further, say your leg got severed. The area in your brain that was in charge of sending a stimulus to your leg because engulfed by other parts of the part, like for example the part of the brain responsible for sending a stimulus to your cheek. As a result, when a person who has lost their leg touches their cheek they feel their leg because the brain part responsible for leg movement is now entwined with the brain part responsible for cheek stimulus.

3) Although the leg is severed the cell body of the sensory neuron is still intact with the body and therefore can still send messages to the brain.

There is still much research being done in this field and we still cannot explain why the brain changes. For more information you should read up on the body's nervous system.

Answer 3

Yes, ghost is like a phantom pain because it is the past memory of a real or imagined person but seen, heard or felt in the present as ghost. It is like experiencing pain in the amputated part of the limb because it still has the representation in the brain.

Please also see : What is a dream?