Since I am already on the topic of how the brain can cause
problems throughout the body, I’m going to go ahead and talk about another
syndrome that I find extremely interesting. Just imagine that you are just
sitting around going about your day and all of a sudden you lose control of one
of your body parts.
There is actually a syndrome where you feel like your hand
is possessed by someone else because you are no longer able to control it. This
syndrome is called Alien hand syndrome and is usually a symptom after someone
has trauma to the brain. This trauma could be caused from brain surgery,
stroke, or an infection. Each type of brain injury causes different types of alien
hand syndrome due to different parts of the brain being affected.
Doctors have scanned the brains of people with this syndrome
using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This scan was done to a man with
his arms and forearms strapped down and out of the man’s sight. When he was told
to voluntarily move one of his arms the scan showed activity in multiple parts
of the brain. While the man was resting and his left hand moved involuntarily there
was only activity in the motor cortex portion of the brain. Therefore, it was
found that when you are voluntarily moving a body part multiple parts of the
brain are used. When you have an involuntary movement only one small part of
the brain is used.
There isn’t any known cure for this syndrome. Most individuals
that do suffer from this syndrome tend to grip things with that hand to not allow
it to move involuntarily or hold it down with the other hand. All of these
syndromes that are caused by trauma in the brain are helping scientists and doctors
understand the brain better. They are able to take people with different
syndromes and measure and research their brain activity to find exactly what
part of the brain causes and controls certain actions. If people didn’t have
these syndromes doctors might not be able to understand the brain as much as
they do now.
http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/a/alien_hand_syndrome/treatments.htm
https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20070717/brain-glitch-spurs-alien-hand-syndrome
https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=12655
This reminds me a lot of something I read in my psychology book a couple months ago. There was procedures done on seizure patients which seemed to have some success but had an interesting side effect. The procedure would cut some connections from the left and right side of the brain needed for communication and this caused people to move without realizing or responding in certain ways to problems.
ReplyDeleteDepending on their field of vision and the arm that was being controlled when asked to read part of a phrase they could only read one side but when asked to point to the part they read they pointed to the other side. This was due to the part of the brain required for motor skill on that side of the body and what the brain is able to process and comprehend visually. I wish I was more familiar so I could give more details.
For now I hope we can try to find more information on this hand possession issue. Already I complain when a roommate moves my things but what do I do when that roommate is me.
This is a crazy syndrome and would be horrifying if it happened to you! That is neat that researchers were able to take a patient with Alien hand syndrome and find out that multiple parts of the brain are active in voluntary movement of limbs while involuntary movement requires only the motor cortex. I am still thinking about how awful it would be to not be able to control random movement of your hand/arm.
ReplyDelete