Article

Illustrations of phantom limbs are intriguing as they depict an invisible
perception. But such illustrations are also important: they provide a form of
objectivity to phenomena, which particularly in the past, have often stretched
credulity. Acknowledging the paradox of using images to reveal an absent though
sensate body part, depictions of phantom limbs are discussed from the
neurological perspective, starting with medieval pictures that showed the
miraculous restoration of limbs, and which possibly represented pictorial
metaphors for a phantom limb. Centuries later, phantom limbs-whether resulting
from amputation or deafferentation-became illustrated, and some reasons for their
illustration are considered. Although often depicted by others, the most precise
and perhaps revealing illustrations of these phantoms have been those made when
patients guide the artist, or draw the phantom themselves. In the case of phantom
pains, the painful component too is sometimes illustrated, again, as with the
miraculous, in metaphorical terms. More recently, depictions of phantoms have
also been revealing in studies of some underlying mechanisms of phantom
phenomena, notably in demonstrating novel patterns of referred sensations after
amputation and attributable to cortical plasticity. Mention is made of
photographs of phantom hands visualized using a mirror box, such visualization
recalling full circle the miraculous restoration of limbs pictured in the past.
The nature of the outline of the phantom is included in a discussion of
demarcation of an invisible body part, before concluding that images of phantom
limbs provide an invaluable background to understanding and studying these
remarkable sensory phenomena.

Langue : ANGLAIS