Feldenkrais Method

Elsewhere I have written about unwanted changes in the brain of musicians and athletes who suffer from dystonia, a condition which makes it difficult or impossible to control fine movements. Turns out it's not just musicians or athletes; these changes show up in folks with chronic pain. In MRI Studies on Homunculus Plasticity on  http://www.somatics.de/:

Based on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)studies by Herta Flor of the Humbold university of Berlin, chronic back pain tends to lead to an increase of the representational area of the back and spreading into neighboring territory within the homunculus

And that ain't all. The Humbold team investigating also found that the brains of amputees showed pretty significant changes in the way they represent the missing limb:

In a joint study with several other universities Flor's team managed to also show that in patients with an amputated arm the representational area of the mouth tends to spread into the cortical area of the missing arm; yet only in those patients which tend to experience phantom pain.

For a well-written and fascinating account of brain plasticity in amputees, see Phantoms in the Brain by VS Ramachandran and Sandra Blakslee.

You can also listen to Ramachandran on the BBC archives at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/reith2003_lecture1.shtml.

- Posted by Tom Landini - 11:53:36 AM -

 How to Resolve Dystonias: A Movement Perspective is an interesting article on Bodymap.org. Among other things, it advises

"...all who are recovering from dystonia should work with a physical or occupational therapist or a Feldenkrais worker (side bar) or an Alexander Technique teacher (side bar)."

The site also offers books written from the body mapping perspective.

- Posted by Tom Landini - 11:15:50 AM -