New Hand, Same Brain Map
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/37445/title/New_hand%2C_same_brain_map
Summery:
At the age of nineteen David Savage was involved in a machine-press accident, which led to the amputation of Savage’s right hand. About thirty five years later in December of 2006, Savage underwent hand transplant surgery. And now David Savage has someone else’s right hand attached to his right arm. Four months after his surgery Savage regained partial sense of touch in his new right hand. One year after his surgery Savage was able to lift a ten pound weight with his right hand.
Doctors questioned if the hand transplant surgery would work because when savage had both of his original hands part of his left brain responded to his right hand and part of his right brain responded to his left hand. When Savage lost his right hand the sensory receptors that responded to his right hand became sensory-deprived and they had to find something else to respond to like his right arm. For about thirty five year Savage's sensory receptors for his lost right hand were responding to something else, but when Savage received his new right hand the same sensory receptors that responded to his original right hand now responded to his new right hand. Doctors were amazed that the brain map for his old right hand was reclaimed for his new right hand especially since Savages brain was full grown at the time of the amputation.
Doctors did several tests to see the activity of Savage’s brain before and after his hand transplant and compared the tests that they took after his hand transplant with men who had never experienced an amputation and found that the activity of his left brain was about the same as the men who never experienced an amputation.
Doctors say that Savages brain went through reverse reorganization. This means that when Savage’s hand was amputated the brain had to reorganize its sensory map and then thirty five years later the brain had to reverse the reorganization of its sensory map that it did when Savage lost his hand to its original sensory map.
Response:
I think that it is amazing that even after thirty five years the brain is still able to reopen the connection that it had with Savage's original hand to his new hand. I also find it extremely amazing that Savage has regained feeling in his right hand, which is not his original right hand. I think that it shows how amazing, complicated, and capable the brain is. I know that the hand transplant surgery is very new and doctors are still trying to figure stuff out , but what I would like to know is were did they get the hand for his transplant?
posted by Stacey Evans @ 6:52 PM
5 Comments:
Wow! I didn't know they had transplants like that! I've always been fascinated with how complex the human brain is. It's amazing how much inforamtion the brain contains and how many jobs it performs, and how we only use a small percentage of it's capability! God is so detailed with His creations that we will never know the actual depth of what makes up our body or how it works!
Um...that's crazy. I wonder who thought an entire hand transplant would be possible after thirty-five years. It'd be interesting to find out all the requirements the new hand had to have to match the old hand so the body wouldn't reject it, like size or blood type. Do you think they specifically asked the family of whoever they got the hand from if they could use it for a transplant? I wonder if it was the same color as his skin color.
I'm impressed that the brain could go back so many years and use that part of the brain to work the hand. The hand is so complex, they have been trying to make robotic prosthetics for years, but they haven't been able to. Now all they have to do is go on a hand-transport waiting list.
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Wow! it is so amazing how the brian works. I think the craziest part is that after thirty-five years, the brian still knows how to control a right hand that is brand new. You would think that not only since a great amount of time has passed, but also becuase the man is getting older, that the brian would not be able to preform with the new right hand. However, the brian can be a suprising and complex thing, as proved in this article.
I think the subject matter in this article is incredible. Just reattaching a hand seems unbelievable to me. But to have it work. And to gain feeling in it when its not your hand is mindblowing. It just shows the leaps in science of recent time. I think they should definitly continue this kind of work and research more into it.
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