Describe how phantom limb sensations that seemingly come from a missing hand might occur when the face is touched

What will be an ideal response?

The area of the cortex that normally responds to the face can send collateral sprouts to the adjacent area of the cortex that was innervated by the hand. Investigators recorded from the cerebral cortices of monkeys whose sensory nerves from one forelimb had been cut 12 years previously. They found that the stretch of cortex previously responsive to the limb was now responsive to the face (Pons et al., 1991). After loss of sensory input from the forelimb, the axons representing the forelimb degenerated, leaving vacant synaptic sites at several levels of the CNS. Evidently, axons representing the face sprouted into those sites in the spinal cord, brain stem, and thalamus (Florence & Kaas, 1995; E. G. Jones & Pons, 1998). Or perhaps axons from the face were already present but became stronger through denervation supersensitivity. Brain scan studies confirm that the same processes occur with humans. Later studies showed that this process can be much quicker than 12 years