Don't stop the dance

In this edited extract from Our Brains, Our Selves, neurologist Masud Husain meets a young woman whose limbs appear to have a mind of their own.

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I'm not sure how to put it, or even if you're the right person to see, to be honest," Anna responded with a shy smile, pushing her straight auburn hair back over her narrow, freckled face.

"Tell me what the problem is and I can see if we can help." I offered her a reassuring look.

She studied me carefully, fixing me with her wide, dark hazel eyes, as if contemplating whether I might be someone she could confide in. Eventually, she spoke, now in a much softer, slightly tremulous voice. "It's a bizarre thing to explain to someone, but my right arm and leg have been acting kind of strangely.'

"In what way?"

She hesitated. "I can be reading in bed and suddenly realise that I don't know where my right hand is, but if I look at it, it will be there. The same can happen with my right leg. I can be sitting on the bus and become unaware where it is. Before I know it, someone has tripped over my foot because it is in the middle of the aisle."

"How long have you been experiencing these symptoms?"

"Probably for the last six months, but I hadn't really thought too much of them. I just thought I wasn't paying enough attention and that it wasn't anything to worry about. But I'm noticing it more now." She nodded, apparently gaining more confidence in explaining the reason she had come to see me.

"And it's only your right arm and leg?"

"Yes. I've never experienced anything like that on my left side."

"Tell me a bit more about when you become aware of these symptoms. What are you doing?"

"It can happen anywhere if I'm busy doing something." Her voice was stronger now. "Suddenly I realise that I don't know where my right hand or foot is. But, like I said, if I look at them, there isn't a problem. If I'm not looking at them... well, I kind of lose them. I am getting a bit worried about it because it's now also affecting my dancing."

"Dancing?"