The neural correlates of phantom sensations and phantom limb pain

幻肢疼痛(PLP)是肢体截肢后发生的一种衰弱状态。传统上，PLP被认为是由感觉运动皮质1的不适应可塑性驱动的。然而，与这种神经假说相关的治疗(例如镜盒疗法)的成功报告有限。研究1)被剥夺的手区域邻近身体部分的可塑性及其与幻肢疼痛的关系：本研究旨在探讨截肢后适应不良的可塑性程度及其与幻肢疼痛的关系。研究2)感觉运动控制受损如何影响伤害性感觉的加工？本研究旨在使用强化学习模型(该模型对预测和预测错误进行建模)在一个积极的伤害性学习任务的背景下，从而解决下面的研究1-3。研究3)外周和中枢对幻觉的贡献：在这里，我们使用外周(非常详细的肌电电极阵列)和中枢(MRI)与幻觉的关联，并观察它们对幻觉的相对贡献。

Phantom limb pain (PLP) is a debilitating condition, occurring after limb amputation.Traditionally, PLP is thought to be driven by maladaptive plasticity in the sensorimotor cortex1. However, treatment associated with such neural hypotheses (e.g. mirror-box therapy) report limited success.Study 1) Plasticity in the neighbouring body part to the deprived hand region, and its relationship to phantom limb pain: this study aims to address the extent of maladaptive plasticity after amputation and it's association to phantom pain. Study 2) How does impaired sensorimotor control influence the processing of nociception?: this study aims to use a reinforcement learning model (which models predictions and prediction errors) in the context of an active nociceptive learning task, thereby addressing study 1-3 below. Study 3) Peripheral and central contributions to phantom sensation: here we are using peripheral (highly-detailed EMG electrode arrays) and central (MRI) correlates of phantom sensations and looking at their relative contributions to phantom perception.