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I am fascinated by the fact that an amputee can control their robotic arm by thinking of the actions they would normally execute when the limb was present.

The mind sends signals to the nerve endings of the amputated limb, which gets picked up by the robotic sensor to perform actuation. Can we send similar signal if we assume we have additional limb (Say a third hand)?

E.g. A phantom hand attached to certain part of our body or is it bit of a stretch. Can we train our mind to control a Phantom hand we never had?

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    $\begingroup$ Hi @gfdsal. No, where are the nerve endings to this third limb? Non-existent right? (Also it is spelt Phantom) $\endgroup$
    – Andrew
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 3:02
  • $\begingroup$ @Andrew, I can ask the same thing for fhantom limb pain, where your feel pain at the part of the body that is already amputated. The pain lies not on the nerve ending but sent from the brain reference 1, reference 2 $\endgroup$
    – gfdsal
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 14:27
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    $\begingroup$ Not only can we, it has already been done with primates nature.com/articles/nn0799_583 behold the first 3 armed monkey. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 17:28
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    $\begingroup$ @andrew, my bad wrong link, here is the correct one. citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/… $\endgroup$
    – John
    Commented Aug 12, 2020 at 13:11
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    $\begingroup$ @John - please don't answer the question in the comments. $\endgroup$
    – AliceD ♦
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 8:36

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