Although noone else can see it, a 64-year-old woman has reported to doctors at Geneva University Hospital the presence of a pale, milky-white and translucent third arm. After examining the case, the woman's neurologist, Asaid Khateb of the hospital's experimental neurophysiology laboratory, called the rare phenomenon credible.
The arm appeared to the woman a few days after suffering a stroke, doctors said.
But this case of what is known as a supernumerary phantom limb (SPL) is a genuine head-scratcher.
The upshot is that the woman can use the apparitional extremity to relieve very real itches on the cheek. It cannot penetrate solid objects. She does not always perceive the arm but "retrieves" it when needed, doctors told the Swiss news agency.
Khateb said the exact cause of the imaginary arm remains a mystery. Supernumerary limbs are rare. There are only nine known cases of a patient both feeling and seeing an arm.
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