Maybe you can relieve the phantom pain, the phantom cramp.

The phantom limb they'll say, But doctor, the phantom limb is paralyzed.

A Phantom Recovery?

He said, No, last three days, I've not had a phantom arm and therefore no phantom elbow pain, no clenching, no phantom forearm pain, all those pains are gone away.

So, you have a patient with a phantom limb. If the arm has been removed and you have a phantom, and you watch somebody else being touched, you feel it in your phantom.

You've heard of phantom limb pain?

It was a paralyzed phantom arm.

The Phantom Middle East Peace Process

One of the things we've found was, about half the patients with phantom limbs claim that they can move the phantom.

You see the phantom within the aquarium.

I've had patients with the uterus removed hysterectomy who have a phantom uterus, including phantom menstrual cramps at the appropriate time of the month.

Now, why would a phantom limb be paralyzed?

She did Cats and Phantom of the Opera.

And you all know what a phantom limb is.

Now, why do you get a paralyzed phantom limb?

Now, I said, Move your normal hand and phantom.

It's getting messages from vision saying the phantom is back.

And I hold in my hand a tissue mimicking phantom.

He looks at the phantom being resurrected, because he's looking at the reflection of the normal arm in the mirror, and it looks like this phantom has been resurrected.

And he started giggling, he says, I can see my phantom.

He had a phantom arm, excruciatingly painful, and he couldn't move it.

And we approach this problem by considering another curious syndrome called phantom limb.

He's going to get the visual impression that the phantom is moving, right?

He said, Oh, I can't move my phantom. You know that. It's painful.

When you see me today, I look like the Phantom of the Opera.

In fact, you can get a phantom with almost any part of the body.

So the ultrasonic transducer emits basically an ultrasonic beam that focuses inside the phantom.

And in fact, one student asked me the other day, Do they get phantom PMS?

And he says, Oh my God, my phantom is moving again. I don't believe this!

OK, now the next question is, what can you learn about phantom limbs by doing experiments?

He said, No, no, no, you know this phantom I've had for the last 10 years?

Now the astonishing thing is, if you have pain in your phantom limb, you squeeze the other person's hand, massage the other person's hand, that relieves the pain in your phantom hand, almost as though the neuron were obtaining relief from merely watching somebody else being massaged.

But the problem is I still have my phantom fingers dangling from the shoulder, and your box doesn't reach.

When an arm is amputated, or a leg is amputated, for gangrene, or you lose it in war for example, in the Iraq war, it's now a serious problem you continue to vividly feel the presence of that missing arm, and that's called a phantom arm or a phantom leg.

And then, when you've amputated the arm, this learned paralysis carries over into your body image and into your phantom, OK?

How do you unlearn the learned paralysis, so you can relieve him of this excruciating, clenching spasm of the phantom arm?

Now, I said, now, look, wiggle your phantom your real fingers, or move your real fingers while looking in the mirror.

My first patient came in, and he looked in the mirror, and I said, Look at your reflection of your phantom.

Well, we said, what if you now send the command to the phantom, but give him visual feedback that it's obeying his command, right?

You have a cardboard box with a mirror in the middle, and then you put the phantom so my first patient, Derek, came in.

So, can you change the design and put it on my forehead, so I can, you know, do this and eliminate my phantom fingers?

Okay, when you hear the click, this is when the energy starts to emit and you see a little lesion form inside the phantom.

That's obvious, but the astonishing thing is, the patient then says, Oh my God, my phantom is moving again, and the pain, the clenching spasm, is relieved.

And your motor command saying there is an arm, and, because of this conflict, the brain says, to hell with it, there is no phantom, there is no arm, right?

But when we were looking at the case sheets, what we found was, these people with the paralyzed phantom limbs, the original arm was paralyzed because of the peripheral nerve injury.