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People with phantom limb experience vivid sensations, and often pain, in the missing extremity. Based on animal studies, scientists have long believed that this phenomenon arises because maps of the missing limb in the brain get scrambled, with healthy body parts taking over for the missing ones. But now, a team of scientists looked at the actual brains of people with the condition, before and after a limb was amputated. They found that, in fact, those maps of the now missing limb remain the same. This challenges notions of plasticity in the adult brain and will change how clinicians try to treat it. Read more about it at Nautilus: https://nautil.us/how-phantom-limb-tricks-us-1233795/