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kalikshama -> RE: Woman feels she should be a paraplegic... (8/6/2013 11:15:31 AM)
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quote:
Original: Marc2b
BIID is quite real. I know a person who suffers from it. It is believed to be a result of the brain's internal map of its self not coverning the affected area.
quote:
Original: njlauren
It raises tough questions, because if the desire is that strong and cannot be treated/cured, and doing so would make them be more well adjusted, then why shouldn't they be allowed to do it?
While the brain is plastic and can be remapped, she'd need to:
1. want to explore this possibility and
2. find someone who can do this.
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
For years the doctrine of neuroscientists has been that the brain is a machine: break a part and you lose that function permanently. But more and more evidence is turning up to show that the brain can rewire itself, even in the face of catastrophic trauma: essentially, the functions of the brain can be strengthened just like a weak muscle. Scientists have taught a woman with damaged inner ears, who for five years had had "a sense of perpetual falling," to regain her sense of balance with a sensor on her tongue, and a stroke victim to recover the ability to walk although 97% of the nerves from the cerebral cortex to the spine were destroyed. With detailed case studies reminiscent of Oliver Sachs, combined with extensive interviews with lead researchers, Doidge, a research psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at Columbia and the University of Toronto, slowly turns everything we thought we knew about the brain upside down. He is, perhaps, overenthusiastic about the possibilities, believing that this new science can fix every neurological problem, from learning disabilities to blindness. But Doidge writes interestingly and engagingly about some of the least understood marvels of the brain.
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