magine being attacked by one of your own hands, which repeatedly tries to slap and punch you. Or you go into a shop and when you try to turn right, one of your legs decides it wants to go left, leaving you walking round in circles.

Last summer I met 55-year-old Karen Byrne in New Jersey, who suffers from Alien Hand Syndrome.

Her left hand, and occasionally her left leg, behaves as if it were under the control of an alien intelligence.

Karen's condition is fascinating, not just because it is so strange but because it tells us something surprising about how our own brains work.

It started after Karen had surgery at 27 to control her epilepsy, which had dominated her life since she was 10.

Surgery to cure epilepsy usually involves identifying and then cutting out a small section of the brain, where the abnormal electrical signals originate.

When this does not work, or when the damaged area cannot be identified, patients may be offered something more radical. In Karen's case her surgeon cut her corpus callosum, a band of nervous fibres which keeps the two halves of the brain in constant contact.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12225163

I wonder if she has ever been accused of shop lifting, and what excuse she gave.

Maybe she was caught stroking the feline? 'Oh, I'm sorry - but it's alien hand syndrome.'

Friend nof mine has this same problem.

When it's his shout in the bar his hand invariably goes into the wrong pocket and comes up empty.

"Sorry chaps, it's alien hand syndrome - not to worry, I'll buy two next time."

Never does, of course.

The full medical description is

A lien

S upportive

S ensitive

H and

O r

L eg

E ctomorphic

S yndrome

or words to that effect

I knew someone like that once. She went back to the hospital for corrective surgery. They cut away even more of her brain. By the time they'd finished they'd taken over 50% of her brain away.

Next morning she woke up and said: "sawasdee kha"

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Edit: Dedication to Mrs Smile added as an after-thought

I knew someone like that once. She went back to the hospital for corrective surgery. They cut away even more of her brain. By the time they'd finished they'd taken over 50% of her brain away.

Next morning she woke up and said: "sawasdee kha"

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Edit: Dedication to Mrs Smile added as an after-thought

that did make me chuckle

I suffered from Alien Hand Syndrome a great deal when I was a teenager but it seems to have abated somewhat over the years

They say it is much better if the hand is numb and doesn't feel like it belongs to you. :jerk:

(you left the mast off that word)

Alien Hand Syndrome - 'The Awful Movies with Deadly Ernest', late night channel 0 about 40 years ago. Claw!

(E: Not to mention Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove)

Alien Hand Syndrome - 'The Awful Movies with Deadly Ernest', late night channel 0 about 40 years ago. Claw!

(E: Not to mention Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove)

Please don't.