Induce to feel a rubber hand as your own

¿will amputees be able to become sensitive to touch through prosthetics in

amputated areas? Mathew Botvinick and Jonathan Cohen made an illusion that
they did not think would become a paradigm that would explain how our perception
works, how we build the image and sensations of our body and through this
promote new technologies in prosthetics. This was done by sitting a subject on a
table, partially covering his view, hiding his arm and replacing it with a rubber arm
that closely resembled a normal arm, then both hands were caressed at the same
time to make the person believe that the substitute hand is the one that feels, then
with a blunt object the rubber hand is struck and the subject will withdraw his hand
thinking that he has received the blow. All the sensations of our body are
integrated into specific nuclei of our brain specifically in our posterior parietal
cortex, it is here where we coherently put together the pieces of all sensations to
form the perception of our environment in real time.

But how does a person with an amputated limb feel that the rubber hand is their
hand, if they don't have a limb to stimulate? Well, after a person is amputated, a
stump remains which is the end of a limb of the body after being cut or amputated.
Through this, phantom limb sensations will be carried out, mapping the phantom
hand, asking the patients if they felt that their fingers were being touched when
different points of the stump were touched, these parts were marked, which was
verified again by the patient. The tests were performed on 18 upper-limb
amputees, of whom six claimed to have felt strong sensations of touch from the
prosthesis and reported having developed a sense of ownership of the artificial
hand. This opens up new possibilities for designing prosthetics equipped with
fingertip touch sensors, which can be connected to a series of tactile drills on the
stump that would reproduce the current illusion (of the rubber hand) in everyday
use. This would also provide a feeling of belonging to the prosthesis, having a
cosmetic value for the patient because they would not constantly remember that
the prosthesis is artificial, thus increasing body satisfaction, hopefully technology
will advance to the point that amputees can feel you totally protest it like a real
hand.

Melissa Paola Alvarez Hernandez 251710018