Proprioception—the Felt Sense of the Body

Excerpt

We know that it is possible to lose the felt sense of the body or parts of it through traumatic injury. In spinal cord injuries, the nerves communicating between the body and the brain can be severely injured or severed completely. In such situations, as a rule, the person is paralyzed as well as being unable to feel his or her body in those areas controlled by the spinal nerves below the break. Both the sensory and the motor pathways between brain and body and body and brain are affected. The actor Christopher Reeve sustained such an injury to his neck when he was thrown from a horse. We will take up his remarkable story in the next issue of the journal. …