Alien Hand Syndrome

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What are the symptoms of Alien Hand Syndrome? Illustrate your answer with the use of case studies. What theory/theories explain why Alien Hand Syndrome occurs? Hand having mind of its own sounds like a phenomenon often met in pop culture. Surprisingly, such limb behaviour occurs in real life and is not only fantasies after all. This phenomenon when a hand acts on its own free will is psychological disorder called Alien Hand Syndrome (AHS) (Brion & Jedynak, 1972). It is typically observed in people with lesions to the corpus callosum and the medial frontal lobes. Up to now, there have been reported less than 50 cases of patients having AHS. Although the syndrome is relatively rare, it varies diversely within the case studies (Biran, Giovannetti, Buxbaum, & Chatterjee, 2006). For this reason, the disorder is a bizarre and puzzling research subject for scientists, and the Alien Hand Syndrome term is used more as an umbrella term to cover multiple different syndromes. Further in the text, I would like to discuss these sets of symptoms and introduce the theory why the Alien Hand Syndrome phenomenon occurs. One of the main things diagnosed when observing AHS sufferers is inability to inhibit the alien hand. Despite the fact that the alien limb can function normally at times, there are occasions when it does not respond to the patients’ intentions. That is, the patients cannot stop or control the hand once it starts performing unintended actions. For instance, GP’s right hand was of little use when she tried to stop the mischievous hand which took and put some fish-bones into her mouth (Della Sala, Marchetti, & Spinnler, 1994). Biran et al.’s (2006) patient JC reported unresponsiveness of the hand as it kept pouring tea after the cup was overflowing, dust not the whole furniture, or control towel while he was drying himself. Moreover, sometimes the

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