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How Alien Hand Syndrome Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast this creepy, creepy podcast. It's not even Halloween. Bill,
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  Speaker 1: come in. I'm Josh. That's Chuck. This stuff you should know?
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  Speaker 1: How you do it? I'm well, sir, good Chuck. Um.
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  Speaker 1: It's gonna sound like a bad editor to our producer
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  Speaker 1: Jerry for that one, though. It is just weird, Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: I think I speak for everybody when I say I
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  Speaker 1: want to hear about one of your favorite movies. One
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  Speaker 1: called Doctor Strange Love subtitled or How I Learned to
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb? Great great film. Do
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  Speaker 1: you like this one as well? I've only seen parts
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  Speaker 1: of it here, I've never seen the whole thing. You
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  Speaker 1: continually disappoint me cinematic. I can't help it. It's all
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  Speaker 1: I ever do, Chuck, Yeah, that was I think. In
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  Speaker 1: nine four, Stanley Kubrick's awesome, awesome, awesome movie, I did
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  Speaker 1: like Eyes Wide Shut. I made my entire family go
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  Speaker 1: to the theater to see it for my birthday. You're kidding,
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  Speaker 1: there was a row of uncomfortable people seated on either
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  Speaker 1: side of me. Was hilarious. I like that movie too,
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  Speaker 1: but I can't imagine taking my mother. Um. Anyway, getting
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  Speaker 1: back to Kubrick. Uh. Yeah, Dr Strangelove um starred Peter
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  Speaker 1: Sellers in three different roles, as a doctor Strangelove, as
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  Speaker 1: an army officer in England, and as the President of
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  Speaker 1: the United States. That sounds familiar. Yeah, toward a force performance.
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  Speaker 1: It was awesome. It was the parts he was born
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  Speaker 1: to play. But I know I bring this up because
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Strangelove. The character of Doctor Strangelove was a Nazi.
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  Speaker 1: Well you know, the US used to like to poach
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  Speaker 1: Nazi uh scientists after the war, you know. Well, and
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  Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened in the movie. And um, he
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  Speaker 1: has a condition. Even though they don't speak of it
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  Speaker 1: in the film, Um, it's pretty clear once you know
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  Speaker 1: something about it. It's alien hand syndrome. What's going on there?
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  Speaker 1: And he loses control of his arm and he does
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  Speaker 1: the zeke kil and beats his arm into submission and
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  Speaker 1: it's really really funny. He has some real trouble with it.
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  Speaker 1: I remember he does. Yeah, So I think that's very
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  Speaker 1: appropriate that we just talked about that movie, Chuck, because
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  Speaker 1: this very podcast is about alien hands syndrome. How nuts
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  Speaker 1: is that? I know? It's almost as if we planned it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah kind of so chuck. Um, this one's yours. I
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  Speaker 1: would like everybody to go ahead and read this by
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  Speaker 1: my Um, it's called how Alien hand Syndrome Works. It
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  Speaker 1: was written by my colleague, uh and love of my life,
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  Speaker 1: Charles W. Bryant go On, who I could never do
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  Speaker 1: without go on, um and uh. Basically, alien hands syndrome
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  Speaker 1: was first recognize the nineteen o nine I understand it
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  Speaker 1: was first described by the Germans, right, and Um, it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't until nineteen seventy two that it really became part
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  Speaker 1: of the medical lexicon or accepted by the medical establishment.
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  Speaker 1: Am I correct? Yeah? Okay, So since nineteen o nine
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  Speaker 1: when it was first noticed, Uh, um, there's been fifty
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  Speaker 1: cases or less, yeah documented. I mean, that's the definition
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  Speaker 1: of extremely rare. So what is it? I mean, are
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  Speaker 1: these people just crazy? What's the deal? Well? I should
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  Speaker 1: point out though, that there are possibly a lot of
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  Speaker 1: other cases that have never been officially diagnosed. But it's
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  Speaker 1: still really rare, is it? Because they were mistaken for crazy.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe I would say so, because what happens, um, when
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  Speaker 1: you have alien hand syndrome is your hand, one of
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  Speaker 1: your hands will involuntarily start doing something and you don't
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  Speaker 1: know what's happening until you look down and see your hand.
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  Speaker 1: If you're a sleep you might even know what's happening.
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  Speaker 1: Uh wait, waiting, wait, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry because
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  Speaker 1: I didn't I wasn't aware of this. This can go
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  Speaker 1: on while you're sleeping. I did not know that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I can go on while you're sleep. Um. So what
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  Speaker 1: happens is your hand just starts doing things and it's
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  Speaker 1: all purpose oriented, which is one of the most fascinating
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  Speaker 1: parts of it. Like your hand will grab the remote
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  Speaker 1: control and change the channel, or tear at your shirt,
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  Speaker 1: un button your shirt. And it seems like something out
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  Speaker 1: of a movie. But it's real. It is real. It's crazy,
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  Speaker 1: but there's some science behind it, which I know you're into. Well,
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  Speaker 1: first of all, of what I understand, there's four main
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  Speaker 1: hallmarks to this. Uh this I guess disease or disorder. UM.
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  Speaker 1: One is that the the U I guess offending limb
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  Speaker 1: feels like it's foreign. Right. Another hallmark is that when
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  Speaker 1: you're not looking at it. Yes, that's that's an even
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  Speaker 1: better way to put it. Um, when you're not looking
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  Speaker 1: at it, it it doesn't feel like it's a part of
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  Speaker 1: your body or that it's attached. Maybe, um, and that
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  Speaker 1: they're people who have suffered from alien hand syndrome have
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  Speaker 1: trouble distinguishing between um, what's voluntary movement like oh, I
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  Speaker 1: want to grab that cup of coffee, and what the
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  Speaker 1: alien hand is doing. It doesn't seem to them that
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  Speaker 1: it's coming from the same place, although it is, which
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  Speaker 1: I know we'll get to in a second, right. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And then the fourth one is that, um, the limb
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  Speaker 1: is often personified like it has its own um, its
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  Speaker 1: own personality. Maybe you call it Roger. Well, a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people do name the limb. Is Roger a popular name?
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  Speaker 1: I bet it's number one? But Roger in the hand.
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  Speaker 1: So those are the four hallmarks, Chuck, Yes, all right, Um,
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  Speaker 1: but what's what? Let's talk about the brain, the aspects
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  Speaker 1: of the brain that are thought to be responsible for this. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we've learned a lot about the brain ourselves from doing
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  Speaker 1: this podcast. It's pretty amazing. The number one thing I've
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  Speaker 1: learned is that we know almost nothing about the brain.
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  Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, we can put man on the moon,
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  Speaker 1: which happened and supposedly supposedly, and we still don't even
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  Speaker 1: know exactly what's going on with brain function. Uh. They
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  Speaker 1: do know that there are you know, certain things like
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  Speaker 1: two hemispheres for lobes. Literalization of brain function, which we've
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  Speaker 1: talked about. Explain that real quick. Well, literal literalization of
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  Speaker 1: brain function is uh say, the left side of the
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  Speaker 1: brain being more detail oriented while the right side of
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  Speaker 1: the brain evaluates the big picture. So the brain functions
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  Speaker 1: are lateralized, one side responsible for one thing and the
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  Speaker 1: others for the other. You did such a good job there,
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you to explain alien hand syndrome with
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  Speaker 1: the brain, okay, And actually I have to tell you
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  Speaker 1: I went behind your back and I did a little
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  Speaker 1: additional research. I came up with a couple of other
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  Speaker 1: things too, did Will you forgive me? I can take
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  Speaker 1: it all right? So there there's one really clear away
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  Speaker 1: that alien hands syndrome is is created and that is
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  Speaker 1: a usually a lesion on the corpus colossum, which, as
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  Speaker 1: you so actually put it in the article, is like
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  Speaker 1: the brain's email server. It's a bundle of nerves that
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  Speaker 1: are important in communication between the hemispheres and different regions
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  Speaker 1: of the brain. Right you need the key to the
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  Speaker 1: brain is to have the lobes and hemispheres all working together.
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  Speaker 1: And that happens thanks to something, you know, the corpus closum. Right. So, um,
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  Speaker 1: when when that doesn't happen and the brains aren't the
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  Speaker 1: regions of the brain are communicating with each other, specifically,
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  Speaker 1: say the frontal lobe, which is involved in planning and
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  Speaker 1: organizing action, right Uh, when that happens, uh, say it's
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  Speaker 1: it can't send a message to the motor strip, which
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  Speaker 1: actually carries out those movements. Right Um. When that happens,
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  Speaker 1: the motor strip isn't dead, It's still functioning. So it
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  Speaker 1: may just be sending random messages to your arm to say,
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  Speaker 1: grasp that, you know, grasp that shirt and pull at it. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: it's your shirt, but do it anyway, that kind of thing.
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  Speaker 1: So that so whenever there's a there's a malfunction again
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  Speaker 1: usually caused by a legion on the corpus colossal where
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  Speaker 1: the the frontal lobe and the motor strip um are
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  Speaker 1: engaged in telling each other what's going on. There is
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  Speaker 1: this purposeless motion which is alien hand syndrome, and really
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  Speaker 1: think about it. Purposeless motion is basically just um and
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  Speaker 1: and motor activity out of context. There's no context to it.
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  Speaker 1: So I mean, like all of a sudden, your hands
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  Speaker 1: grabbing a coffee mug. Right, Um, but it seems foreign
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  Speaker 1: and weird because you don't understand why you didn't form
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  Speaker 1: the thought that said I need that coffee cup, right,
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  Speaker 1: which I guess makes the whole thing kind of chilling
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  Speaker 1: in need and even worse, chuck. There's no there's no
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  Speaker 1: curious there, no, there is no cure. Um. You know.
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  Speaker 1: They've done some studies is is recently as two thousand seven.
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  Speaker 1: But one of the reasons they haven't done that many
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  Speaker 1: studies over the years is because it's so rare that
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  Speaker 1: just just say that and it's not Um, I guess
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  Speaker 1: you could say it's not dangerous. It's more of a
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  Speaker 1: nuisance than anything. There have been really really rare cases
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  Speaker 1: where someone's like choke themselves to death. No no, no no,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not to death, but they found their hands like
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  Speaker 1: creeping up around their throat, which is really creepy. But um,
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  Speaker 1: since it's not that Since it's so rare and since
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't do any real damage to your body, they
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  Speaker 1: haven't really been interested in studying it that much. But
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  Speaker 1: they did in two thousand seven a bit and put
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  Speaker 1: people in an fMRI machine and they found, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they basically said what you just said, which is the
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  Speaker 1: motor strip has been singled out as a center of activity,
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  Speaker 1: even though they don't know what triggers it. It's still
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  Speaker 1: shooting messages, but it's not it's not taking orders any
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  Speaker 1: longer for that one side of the of the body,
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  Speaker 1: that one limb from the frontal lobe. Also, there's another thing. Um.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of a variation on um alien hand syndrome,
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  Speaker 1: which by the way, is also called antarchic hand um
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  Speaker 1: and doctor strange life syndrome. Yeah, is that for real? Yeah? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's probably like a more casual term that
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  Speaker 1: doctors use, especially if they're kubric fans. Right. So, UM,
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  Speaker 1: there's a it's kind of a variation on it. It's
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  Speaker 1: caused by damage to the parietal lobe UM and usually
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  Speaker 1: what it results in is a basically a levitation of
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  Speaker 1: the hand UM and it's I can't tell if it's
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  Speaker 1: dominant the dominant hand like um with with with corpus
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  Speaker 1: colossal damage corpus colossalm damage. Usually that is the non
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  Speaker 1: dominant hand. So if you're right handed, your left hand
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  Speaker 1: is gonna be alien hand. If you have actual damage
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  Speaker 1: to the frontal lobe, that usually results in the dominant hand.
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  Speaker 1: If you're right handed, your right hand would have alien
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  Speaker 1: hand syndrome. Damage to the prioral lobe doesn't go one
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  Speaker 1: way or the other necessarily, But what happens is, especially
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  Speaker 1: when you close your eyes, um, the hand will start
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  Speaker 1: to levitate because they're no longer in sync um and
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  Speaker 1: it makes you know, dressing kind of difficult, that kind
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  Speaker 1: of thing. Uh. So, pridal lobe damage, since the pridal
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  Speaker 1: lobe is responsible for sensation and sensory um input, when
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  Speaker 1: you close your your eyes, your hand just kind of
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  Speaker 1: goes a little wacky because, like like you said in
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  Speaker 1: the article, visual cues kind of are very important in
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  Speaker 1: associating your hand with your body when when it's dissociated
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  Speaker 1: like this right. Uh, And like you said, there's no cure, Um,
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  Speaker 1: I think you said that. I think you said it.
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  Speaker 1: Either way you said it, Uh, there's no cure. A
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  Speaker 1: lot of times there that seems humorous, but people will
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  Speaker 1: do things like, um, wear an oven met or keep
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  Speaker 1: their hand occupied by giving it something to hold onto.
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  Speaker 1: And some cases is so severe that they've actually like
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  Speaker 1: tie their hands behind their back. Wow. I know, wow, Um,
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  Speaker 1: but josh, we're not done yet. One of the things
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  Speaker 1: I thought was interesting was all the different times the
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  Speaker 1: alien and syndrome has been portrayed in somewhere another in
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  Speaker 1: books and TV and movies. Yeah. I like this point
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  Speaker 1: you made. Yeah, that that it's as many as there
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  Speaker 1: have been real cases, or more there have been. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: it's been depicted on the silver screen, in small screen.
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  Speaker 1: And he goes back all the way to the film
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  Speaker 1: Mad Love, followed an obsessed doctor who replaced the hands
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  Speaker 1: of would be lover's husband with those of a knife
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  Speaker 1: wielding murderer. Yeah. I looked this movie up because I
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  Speaker 1: hadn't heard of it before, and um, it's actually um
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  Speaker 1: the mad doctors played by Peter Lorii. And he's totally
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  Speaker 1: bald like Peter Laurie's not creepy looking enough. He has
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  Speaker 1: his his head as ball as the baby's butt, and
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  Speaker 1: he looks really creepy interesting like he I'm sure he
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  Speaker 1: played the part very very well. The Adams Family. Josh.
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  Speaker 1: Actually I've watched um those I think all well, two
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  Speaker 1: of those movies recently. They're actually really good movies. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: my brother worked on the second one, good stuff. Young
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  Speaker 1: La Ricci had a crush on him. Really, it is true,
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  Speaker 1: but she was you know, do you think she remembers him? Now?
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  Speaker 1: I bet she does. She sent him Christmas kifts for
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  Speaker 1: a couple of years. And Angelica Houston had the hot sporn. Dude,
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  Speaker 1: what my brother is a handsome guy, I guess. So, um,
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  Speaker 1: off track there, but interesting nonetheless, um, Adam's family had
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  Speaker 1: the thing, which wasn't quite alien hand syndrome, but it
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  Speaker 1: was like an exactly but doing its own things, purposeful things.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, it was also very helpful a lot too,
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  Speaker 1: drove the Getaway Car professor. Yeah, so I chuck. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I find it interesting too that, um, that Hollywood has
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  Speaker 1: this fascination with it and well all so creepy and
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  Speaker 1: cool and unknown and it is. But at the same time,
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  Speaker 1: apparently modern medicine doesn't have as much of an interest
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  Speaker 1: as Hollywood does. Mr sad So get to it. Physicians
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and uh medical researchers have also writes and While you're
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: doing that, we're going to do some listener mail. Josh,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: you know what we're doing, Hiku Theater. I'm ready for this, Chuck.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I've been waiting for this kind is. I'm very psyched
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: about this. The hikus are rolling in at an unprecedented rate.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Veronica thirteen. It's hot in winter, all the people start
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: to melt. Welcome to Texas. So I'm guessing from Texas? Yeah? Uh.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: This one is from Crystal Duqui. I found your podcast.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I just could not get enough. Told Chuck, I love y'all.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: He sent me a pick, which I added to my shrine.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Just kidding, not nuts, keep up the gray work. Can't
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: wait to hear the next one. Why Chuck love Hikus.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: It's an excellent question. It is, uh, diego Garcia, Philadelphia,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: consider the city of brotherly love. Glasses caked with philth Nanners, yogurt,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: strawberry smoothie aftermath. Yes, so you must have made one
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of my sumothies. Uh Andy sixteen from I of Ho
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: says I want to suggest a podcast about Greek myths
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that would be so boss and I love the use
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: of the word boss there. And we have two more
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Sandra Thompson of Irvine, California. I learned neat things when
• 14:14
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• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I guess the music that she's talking about is the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the altro music the end, I'm sure at the end
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: of the podcast, little thanks for that. And then we
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: got one from Bob capital b O b exclamation point.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Bob is how he says his name, apparently, and he
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: wrote us a limerick, but explained that he would do
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: so in the form of a high coup. I'm not
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: sure that's possible, he said. It ain't a high kup.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: It's a limerick. You see. Hope you enjoy it. And
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: now the limerick, the edited version. It's Friday today, a
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: day for bad luck, so they say, so, I'll damn
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck because they have all the luck. Let's
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: keep out of misfortune's way. Fantastic gosh, Thank you, Bob, Bob,
• 15:01
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