The brain preserves maps of missing hands for years

The brain holds space for a missing limb, even years after it’s gone.

For three women who underwent planned hand amputations, brain scans revealed remarkably durable maps of hand areas, lasting for five years in one case. The results, published August 21 in Nature Neuroscience, counter the long-held idea that the adult brain remakes itself in prominent ways after a change to the body, such as an amputation.

Earlier research, much of it on rodents and nonhuman primates,…