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Cake day: August 22nd, 2025

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  • I think the mechanism in question is more on the brain side. Where certain sets of nerves are processed, if some are missing that area of brain simply adjusts the input strength of others. I suspect adult amputation is different from amputation of a newborn since the brain elasticity is so different. But all we can do it make educated guesses anyway since we can’t do controlled experiments. Studies involving watching brain activity can only go so far to really reflect experience. So we can’t know. I’m just pointing out that the common sense approach you indicated isn’t matched by some clear data. So it’s not cut and dry. It could even be that men circumcised at birth experience more sexual pleasure.



  • There’s plenty of signals coming from the nerve bundles in the area. Phantom pain seems to need larger sets of nerve bundles removed/unstimulated. Is s not fully understood, but that seems to be how it works. People who lose fingers often do get increased sensitivity on other fingers and they can also get phantom pain.



  • CannonFodder@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldtype shit
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    2 days ago

    The brain is weird and whacky the way it works. It has a sort of auto-gain. The less nerve stimulus over time leads to a higher sensitivity of remaining nerves. Often when people lose a limb, they still feel pain in it - the lack of nerve signals causes the remaining nerve endings to be amplified so much that despite not even having pain receptors, the noise signals are perceived as pain. So a human growing up with a cut forskin simply adapts and the brain perceives more sensitivity from the other nerves to produce the same levels of sensation.










  • This reminds me of a long time ago when I was traveling by train in Europe. It was hot and stuffy despite the windows being open with muggy air blasting in. We were standing in the halls as it was better than in the rooms. Then someone barfed - luckily they made it to the window.
    Later I went for a walk along the train. The next carriage back was strangely empty - until I noticed the barf splatter on the inside wall of the hall. You could see the silhouette of where people had been standing.