Alien hand syndrome

I want you to imagine the following scenario: One day you’re sitting on a park bench. A man comes and sits right next to you. A few minutes later you feel a hand rifling through your pocket. You turn to your neighbor and find that he’s got half his arm in your pocket, apparently looking for some valuables. What would your reaction be? Typically, I’d expect it to be a combination of surprise and anger, correct? That’s natural. But when you grab his hand and berate him, what do you expect his reaction to be? He might run away. Or he might sit in awkward silence staring at you. Or he would come with some far-fetched excuse, such as “Oh sorry, my hand was doing that on its own, I had nothing to do with that.” At that point you’d probably be fuming with rage, right about to explode. But wait, that last excuse could be truthful!
What the man could be suffering from is called Alien Hand Syndrome. The most bizarre symptom of this little-known syndrome is what your hand does — on its own. The brain randomly loses its full control over the hand and it starts doing things that appear purposeful which you’ve not authorized it to do, such as buttoning your shirt or opening a cabinet, and yes, this can include looking for money in people’s pockets! And that’s where the name of the symptom came from, because whereas the person normally has total control over his extremities, the hand now feels like an alien addition to the body that exists outside its sphere of control.
Needless to say that in past times this remarkably peculiar occurrence evoked more sinister fears, as people thought such a thing meant the person was possessed by demons or struck with some kind of spell.
And although even today we don’t know exactly the cause of this syndrome, we do know it occurs when there is damage to some of the brains’ lobes. Damage to the corpus callosum, the part of the brain that coordinates signals between the right and left hemispheres, is also a suspected cause of this syndrome, and this damage can be deliberate at times, as there is a medical procedure (corpus callosotomy) to treat extreme cases of epilepsy which works by separating the two hemispheres. The syndrome was also seen following strokes and infections.
In extreme cases, the “alien” hand works in a manner completely contrary to the other. One epilepsy patient, for example, after going through brain surgery to relieve her epilepsy, took a cigarette and put it in her mouth, only to find that her other hand mysteriously went up and yanked the cigarette out of her mouth! “Maybe he wants me to quit smoking,” she was heard remarking, apparently giving the alien hand a male identity.
Although no definitive treatment exists, it’s been noted that giving the alien hand something to do can keep it occupied and away from trouble. One patient stuck a cane in his alien hand and noticed that the hand continued to grip the cane and didn’t wander away to do random actions like it did a few times before.
In any case, if you ever do come across a scenario such as the one I mentioned in the beginning, I’d advise not believing the alien hand syndrome excuse except if the guy presents an authentic medical report!