How are artificial limbs represented in the brain? 

While tremendous resources are dedicated to the development of cutting-edge prosthetic limbs to aid amputees to cope with their disability, a staggering 50% of amputees do not use their prosthesis regularly. We believe that a better implementation of artificial limbs can only emerge from a true understanding of the cognitive and neurophysiological constraints of prosthesis representation and usage. Our work explores whether neural resources, uniquely developed for hand representation, become repurposed to support artificial limbs, and whether neural “embodiment” of prosthetic limbs can be improved. 

Example papers: Schone et al., 2025, Nature Neuroscience; Schone et al., 2023, Nature Human Behaviour; Maimon-Mor & Makin, 2020, PLoS Biol; van den Heiligenberg et al., 2018, Brain