They say that the legendary medieval physician Paracelsus sometimes sat his patients in front of a large mirror and "persuaded" their illness to go to the double on the other side of the glass … How effective such treatment was is unknown, but even today mirrors are used to heal some ailments, especially related with painful sensations.
This explains the fact that after being seriously injured, people may not immediately feel pain - for example, wounded soldiers on the battlefield can continue to fight for some time without noticing their wound. Apparently, a mechanism is triggered here that does not allow a person to immediately lose consciousness from a painful shock, but allows you to first find a way out of a dangerous situation. But when he is safe, then pain comes …
The thing is that the brain perceives our physical body as a virtual image, which is formed from sensations "coming" from the senses. Previously, scientists believed that in the event of injury and damage, pain receptors send signals directly to the corresponding brain centers. However, in the mid-60s of the last century, it turned out that our brain is able to reduce the intensity of these signals and even completely block them, producing special substances - endorphins.
For the same reason, people often feel phantom pain at the site of amputated or removed organs and limbs. “The virtual body image does not always correspond to the real physical body,” says researcher Vitaly Pravdivtsev.
- So, after amputation of a limb or removal of an organ from the physical (dense) body, the memory of them often remains in the virtual body, and then the phantom image of the missing limb and the former pain is perceived by the brain as reality. Moreover, the virtual pain is sometimes stronger and more unbearable than the real one."
But if the brain "works" with the virtual image of the body, then is it possible to correct the latter to save people from unbearable pain and other health problems? Could false signals sent to the brain stimulate the growth of new nerve cells and the restoration of neural connections?
Thus, the phenomenon of false paralysis is known, in which the brain simply does not allow the limbs to move in order to avoid possible pain and suffering. If you make the brain believe that there will be no pain, then it is possible that it will be possible to restore motor functions.
All these problems can be solved by the "mirror therapy" method. How does it work? Take people with complex regional pain syndrome. It is common for such patients to experience acute pain in the limbs, which is aggravated by movement or touch. So, the patient is seated in front of a mirror in such a way that only a healthy limb is reflected in it, and they are asked to move a healthy arm or leg, while looking at the mirror image.
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The patient perceives this as if he were moving the diseased limb, but does not feel painful sensations … This leads to the fact that over time he ceases to feel pain in the other limb.
Phantom pains, when amputated limbs "hurt", are treated in a similar way. After all, a healthy limb cannot hurt, which means that the pain disappears. This technique proved to be especially effective when it came to patients who suffered from phantom pain syndrome for two to five months, and the pain sensations decreased after the very first session.
Patients with partially paralyzed limbs after a stroke had to move their healthy arm or leg while looking in a mirror. The sessions lasted 10-15 minutes. They had to be repeated several times a day for several weeks. The idea was that the brain would mistake the movements of a healthy limb for the movements of a paralyzed one and begin to restore the broken neural connections, which would lead to the end of the paralysis.
"Mirror therapy" had a noticeable effect in those cases when it came to people who had suffered a severe form of stroke. After weeks or even months of "exercise", patients with paralyzed limbs showed significant improvement, and in some of them the paralysis disappeared completely.
Studies have shown that if one of the brain regions is damaged, another department often takes over its functions, and sometimes new healthy cells and neural connections are formed in the affected department during therapy. Therefore, the theory that our thoughts and emotions can affect the physical component is not so "paranormal".
Shlion Irina