Comments on: Alien Hand Syndrome

By: tombuckelew

tombuckelew — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:15:29 +0000

Very interesting Rich. We often overlook the melding of different concepts from different disciplines.
Understanding the brain is extremely challenging. The brain itself is largely insensitive to pain. Consequently, neurosurgeons may perform brain surgery with no anesthesia or very light anesthesia which keeps the patient in a state of consciousness in order to answer questions that will guide the hand of the surgeon into specific areas. A tiny electrical shock precisely placed may convince the patient that the surgeon has touched his thumb when in actuality, the surgeon has only activated the neurons which would fire if his thumb actually was touched. This phenomenon can be used by the surgeon to have the patient sense the taste of chocolate or recall some long hidden memory of childhood as well as innumerable other examples. I believe that misfirings or “neural short circuits” may explain many events in people’s lives that defy belief. The individual who hears voices may have misfirings in neurons any where along the pathway from the ears to the auditory interpretive area of the brain. I am guessing that those misfirings can be the result of anything from embryonic hardwiring errors to reduced blood flow to a specific area as a consequence of aging arteries to the use of pharmaceuticals, either legal or illegal or perhaps simply stress. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys are aware of just how malleable the memories of eye witnesses can be.
We sometimes are chauvinistic about current thought versus concepts proposed by individuals years, centuries or even millenia before. Though people, long dead, were not able to validate their thoughts with the research findings since then, that does not make their contributions any less valuable. Obviously, we still read and value the teachings of Socrates, Plato, Confuscious, Buddha, Mohammed and Christ to name a few.

By: Rich Forliano

Rich Forliano — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:31:58 +0000

In the Iroquois Creation myth the first tow men are twins, one good and the other evil. The good obedient twin is pushed over the edge by his evil brother. Not only does the good twin kill his evil brother but when his grandmother berates him for the deed, he also kills her in a fit of rage. The dominanat Iroquois culture knew of this syndrome and had other rituals that mirrored Fredian dream therapy hundreds of years before Freud.

By: tombuckelew

tombuckelew — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:14:41 +0000

Hi, This phenomenon has been known since the 1960s. I can’t think of any controlled experiment that can be construed in order to verify its role in destructive or mischievous behavior. In fact, if it were to be scientifically proven to be valid and the courts accepted its validity, it would be open up Pandora’s box as far jurisprudence is concerned. Guilty as a consequence of inability to control an alter ego???? I presented this essay as an interesting explanation for aberrant behavior. I don’t expect any one in authority to accept it as a fact. Though the occurences are true and the cause (disruption of the corpus callosum) a fact , it is far too unbelievable for the neurologically uninitiated to accept.

By: Jo Lofstead

Jo Lofstead — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:39:37 +0000

Interesting proposal. If verified by the scientific method, this would open an expansion of the field of neurology and hopefully enable effective treatments to be discovered. I hope the medical community engages.