The brain often reorganizes itself after damage to some of its sensory inputs, amputation of a forearm for instance. Work involving both microelectrode recording and stimulation of an area of the brain known as the somatosensory thalamus, on people with and without amputations, shows that brain reorganization can take different courses — but that, in amputees who suffer from phantom sensations from the missing limb, such reorganization has not resulted in the respecification of neural function.
