Ramachandran and Eric Altschuler have shown that the mirror box is effective on other nonphantom problems, such as the paralyzed legs of stroke patients. Mirror therapy differs from Taub’s in that it fools the patient’s brain into thinking he is moving the affected limb, and so it begins to stimulate that limb’s motor programs. Another study showed that mirror therapy was helpful in preparing a severely paralyzed stroke patient, who had no use of one side of the body, for a Taub-like treatment. The patient recovered some use of his arm, the first occasion in which two novel plasticity-based
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