ArticleCortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior2018
Reaffirming the link between chronic phantom limb pain and maintained missing hand representation.
Article in Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 81 citations in OpenAlex.
- Beyond traditional therapies: a network meta-analysis on the treatment efficacy for chronic phantom limb pain.Regional anesthesia and pain medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Neural correlates of phantom motor execution: A functional neuroimaging systematic review and meta-analysis.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2024Pooled it
- Motor Cortex Reorganization in Limb Amputation: A Systematic Review of TMS Motor Mapping Studies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020Pooled it
- Effects of Combined and Alone Transcranial Motor Cortex Stimulation and Mirror Therapy in Phantom Limb Pain: A Randomized Factorial Trial.Neurorehabilitation and neural repair · 2021Trial
- Cerebellar Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (ctDCS) Ameliorates Phantom Limb Pain and Non-painful Phantom Limb Sensations.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2019Trial
- Effective Interventions in Restoring Mobility and Relieving Pain After Lower Limb Amputation.Journal of orthopaedics and sports medicine · 2026Article
- Resting-State Theta and Alpha Oscillations in Amputation and Phantom Limb Pain: A Pre-Registered High-Density EEG Study.Brain topography · 2026Article
- From Amputation to Persistent Pain: A Review of Molecular and Cellular Processes in Phantom Limb Pain.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Article
- Compensatory Failure of Autonomic Regulation in Phantom Limb Pain and Its Correlation with Maladaptive Plasticity: A Cross-Sectional HRV Study in Amputees.Biomedicines · 2025Article
- How pain and body representations transform each other: A narrative review.Journal of neuropsychology · 2025Review
- Sensing the Self: The Role of the Insula and Interoception in Body Image.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- A Dissociation Between Primary Motor Cortex Reorganization and Correlation with Pain Intensity in Phantom Limb Pain: A Systematic Review of fMRI Studies.International journal of general medicine · 2025Review
- Clinical Characteristics Associated with the PLP-PLS Index, a New Potential Metric to Phenotype Phantom Limb Pain.Biomedicines · 2024Article
- Pain and Reorganization after Amputation: Is Interoceptive Prediction a Key?The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry · 2023Article
- Against cortical reorganisation.eLife · 2023Article
- Similar somatotopy for active and passive digit representation in primary somatosensory cortex.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Evolving techniques for reducing phantom limb pain.Experimental biology and medicine (Maywood, N.J.) · 2023Review
- Complex pattern of facial remapping in somatosensory cortex following congenital but not acquired hand loss.eLife · 2022Article
- Altered intra- and inter-network brain functional connectivity in upper-limb amputees revealed through independent component analysis.Neural regeneration research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Phantom limb pain (PLP) is commonly considered to be a result of maladaptive brain plasticity. This model proposes that PLP is mainly caused by reorganisation in the primary somatosensory cortex, presumably characterised by functional degradation of the missing hand representation and remapping of other body part representations. In the current study, we replicate our previous results by showing that chronic PLP correlates with maintained representation of the missing hand in the primary sensorimotor missing hand cortex. We asked unilateral upper-limb amputees to move their phantom hand, lips or other body parts and measured the associated neural responses using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We confirm that amputees suffering from worse chronic PLP have stronger activity in the primary sensorimotor missing hand cortex while performing phantom hand movements. We find no evidence of lip representation remapping into the missing hand territory, as assessed by measuring activity in the primary sensorimotor missing hand cortex during lip movements. We further show that the correlation between chronic PLP and maintained representation of the missing hand cannot be explained by the experience of chronic non-painful phantom sensations or compensatory usage of the residual arm or an artificial arm (prosthesis). Together, our results reaffirm a likely relationship between persistent peripheral inputs pertaining to the missing hand representation and chronic PLP. Our findings emphasise a need to further study the role of peripheral inputs from the residual nerves to better understand the mechanisms underlying chronic PLP.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.