ArticlePLoS biology2020
Is an artificial limb embodied as a hand? Brain decoding in prosthetic limb users.
Article in PLoS biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prosthetic embodiment: systematic review on definitions, measures, and experimental paradigms.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2022Pooled it
- Brain lateralization in children with upper-limb reduction deficiency.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2021Trial
- Dissociating the hierarchical processing of perceptual and food category information under different task demands.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Article
- Arm dominance is an emergent effect of practice executing complex trajectory shapes required by tools and objects.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Children's Embodiment of Non-Human Virtual Hand Forms.Developmental science · 2026Article
- Stable cortical body maps before and after arm amputation.Nature neuroscience · 2025Article
- Embodiment of an artificial limb in mice.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Investigating the Feasibility and Safety of Osseointegration With Neural Interfaces for Advanced Prosthetic Control.Cureus · 2025Review
- Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces: State of the Art and Trends.IEEE reviews in biomedical engineering · 2025Review
- A neurocognitive pathway for engineering artificial touch.Science advances · 2024Review
- Rewiring the evolution of the human hand: How the embodiment of a virtual bionic tool improves behavior.iScience · 2024Article
- Biomimetic versus arbitrary motor control strategies for bionic hand skill learning.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Experimental evaluation of the impact of sEMG interfaces in enhancing embodiment of virtual myoelectric prostheses.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Against cortical reorganisation.eLife · 2023Article
- From rubber hands to neuroprosthetics: Neural correlates of embodiment.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Should bionic limb control mimic the human body? Impact of control strategy on bionic hand skill learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Functional relevance of the extrastriate body area for visual and haptic object recognition: a preregistered fMRI-guided TMS study.Cerebral cortex communications · 2023Article
- Understanding and Measuring the Cognitive Load of Amputees for Rehabilitation and Prosthesis Development.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translation · 2022Review
- Subjective Response Measurement to Prosthesis or Device Use: Validation of the Prosthetic-Bionic Paradigm Questionnaire (PBP-Q).International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- An Artificial Reflex Arc That Perceives Afferent Visual and Tactile Information and Controls Efferent Muscular Actions.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 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
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The potential ability of the human brain to represent an artificial limb as a body part (embodiment) has been inspiring engineers, clinicians, and scientists as a means to optimise human-machine interfaces. Using functional MRI (fMRI), we studied whether neural embodiment actually occurs in prosthesis users' occipitotemporal cortex (OTC). Compared with controls, different prostheses types were visually represented more similarly to each other, relative to hands and tools, indicating the emergence of a dissociated prosthesis categorisation. Greater daily life prosthesis usage correlated positively with greater prosthesis categorisation. Moreover, when comparing prosthesis users' representation of their own prosthesis to controls' representation of a similar looking prosthesis, prosthesis users represented their own prosthesis more dissimilarly to hands, challenging current views of visual prosthesis embodiment. Our results reveal a use-dependent neural correlate for wearable technology adoption, demonstrating adaptive use-related plasticity within the OTC. Because these neural correlates were independent of the prostheses' appearance and control, our findings offer new opportunities for prosthesis design by lifting restrictions imposed by the embodiment theory for artificial limbs.
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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.