full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Joshua W. Pate: The fascinating science of phantom limbs

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The vast majority of pleope who’ve lost a limb can still feel it— not as a memory or vague shape, but in complete lfieklie ditael. They can flex their pnaothm fniegrs and sometimes even feel the chafe of a watchband or the throb of an ingrown toenail. And agolssnhitniy enough, occasionally even people born without a limb can feel a phantom.

So what causes phantom limb sensations? The accuracy of these apparitions suggests that we have a map of the body in our brains. And the fact that it’s possible for someone who’s never had a limb to feel one implies we are born with at least the beginnings of this map. But one thing sets the ptnahoms that appear after amputation apart from their flesh and blood predecessors: the vast majority of them are painful. To fluly understand phantom limbs and phantom pain, we have to consider the etrine pathway from limb to brain.

Open Cloze


The vast majority of ______ who’ve lost a limb can still feel it— not as a memory or vague shape, but in complete ________ ______. They can flex their _______ _______ and sometimes even feel the chafe of a watchband or the throb of an ingrown toenail. And _____________ enough, occasionally even people born without a limb can feel a phantom.

So what causes phantom limb sensations? The accuracy of these apparitions suggests that we have a map of the body in our brains. And the fact that it’s possible for someone who’s never had a limb to feel one implies we are born with at least the beginnings of this map. But one thing sets the ________ that appear after amputation apart from their flesh and blood predecessors: the vast majority of them are painful. To _____ understand phantom limbs and phantom pain, we have to consider the ______ pathway from limb to brain.

Solution


  1. phantom
  2. detail
  3. phantoms
  4. people
  5. entire
  6. fully
  7. lifelike
  8. fingers
  9. astonishingly

Original Text


The vast majority of people who’ve lost a limb can still feel it— not as a memory or vague shape, but in complete lifelike detail. They can flex their phantom fingers and sometimes even feel the chafe of a watchband or the throb of an ingrown toenail. And astonishingly enough, occasionally even people born without a limb can feel a phantom.

So what causes phantom limb sensations? The accuracy of these apparitions suggests that we have a map of the body in our brains. And the fact that it’s possible for someone who’s never had a limb to feel one implies we are born with at least the beginnings of this map. But one thing sets the phantoms that appear after amputation apart from their flesh and blood predecessors: the vast majority of them are painful. To fully understand phantom limbs and phantom pain, we have to consider the entire pathway from limb to brain.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
phantom limb 5
phantom limbs 4
body part 3
vast majority 2
sensory input 2
spinal cord 2
body parts 2
phantom pain 2
mirror box 2
box therapy 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
mirror box therapy 2

Important Words


  1. accuracy
  2. amputation
  3. apparitions
  4. astonishingly
  5. beginnings
  6. blood
  7. body
  8. born
  9. brain
  10. brains
  11. chafe
  12. complete
  13. detail
  14. entire
  15. fact
  16. feel
  17. fingers
  18. flesh
  19. flex
  20. fully
  21. implies
  22. ingrown
  23. lifelike
  24. limb
  25. limbs
  26. lost
  27. majority
  28. map
  29. memory
  30. occasionally
  31. pain
  32. painful
  33. pathway
  34. people
  35. phantom
  36. phantoms
  37. sensations
  38. sets
  39. shape
  40. suggests
  41. throb
  42. toenail
  43. understand
  44. vague
  45. vast
  46. watchband