Remodeling of cortical activity for motor control following upper limb loss.

Objective: Upper extremity loss presents immediate and lasting challenges for motor control. While sensory and motor representations of the amputated limb undergo plasticity to adjacent areas of the sensorimotor homunculus, it remains unclear whether laterality of motor-related activity is affected by neural reorganization following amputation.

Methods: Using electroencephalography, we evaluated neural activation patterns of formerly right hand dominant persons with upper limb loss (amputees) performing a motor task with their residual right limb, then their sound left limb.