...Phantom limb pain is one of the most intractable and merciless pains ever known—a pain that haunts appendages that do not physically exist, often persisting with uncanny realness long after fleshy limbs have been traumatically, surgically, or congenitally lost. The very existence and “naturalness...

...This book examines the link between phantom limb pain and prosthetic innovation—a relationship between ghosts and machines that has at times been pleasant, accommodating, and mutually beneficial. It considers how prosthetization has transformed the bodies, selves, and identities of individuals who...

... of the human brain, including its ability to generate the most complex sensory experiences. It also discusses research on the sensory and motor homunculi, “mislocation phenomenon” or “referred sensation” in cases of major amputation, the causal role of cortical plasticity in phantom limb pain after major...

...This chapter examines the extraordinary increase and subsequent decrease of phantom limb pain within the American context. It shows that the pervasiveness of phantom pain coincided with the invention of pain medicine, the instantiation of the pain clinic, the institutionalization of pain...