Herta Flor - Brain circuits involved in phantom limb pain: implications for treatment

Phantom limb pain is a frequent sequel of an amputation occurring in up to 80% of the amputee population. Peripheral factors such as local changes at the residual limb, alterations in severed nerves and associated dorsal root ganglia as well as central changes such as spinal and supraspinal plastic changes have been examined. Moreover, enhanced input from the amputated limb has been discussed as a crucial factor. New insights about central changes have also come

from studies on somatosensory illusions and altered body perception. These hypotheses have led to new behavioral and pharmacological treatment options that target maladaptive plasticity and learning and sensory incongruence phenomena. These approaches include enhanced prosthesis use, discrimination training, mirror treatment, video feedback, imagery and virtual reality applications, brain-computer interfaces as well as combinations of these treatments with

pharmacological interventions. We will provide a critical overview of these recent developments on sources and treatments of phantom phantom limb pain.

Herta Flor studied psychology at the Universities of Würzburg, Tübingen and Yale and obtained her PhD at the University of Tübingen in 1984. She was postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, assistant professor at the University of Bonn, visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh and associate and full professor at Humboldt University, Berlin. Since 2000 she is the Scientific Director of the Department of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at the Central Institute of Mental Health and Full Professor of Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology at the University of Heidelberg. She also holds adjunct professor positions from the University of Mannheim and Aalborg University and an honorary doctorate from the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the interaction of brain and behavior with a special interest in the role of implicit learning and memory processes in the development and maintenance of chronic pain and mental disorders. The methods that are employed range from experimental psychology to non-invasive brain imaging and peripheral psychophysiology. She is also actively involved in the development of new behavioral approaches to pain and other mental disorders and teaches and supervises clinical psychologists in cognitive- behavioral methods. She has published more than 400 scholarly articles and has received several awards and honors among them the Lifetime Achievement Award of the German Psychological Association (2014) and the Max-Planck-Award for International Cooperation (2000). She is a member of the German National Academy of Science Leopoldina and the Academia Europaea.

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