Prosopagnosia

What is prosopagnosia and where is the lesion responsible for it? 

Prosopagnosia (face blindness) is the inability to recognize familiar faces.

Patients can perform a generic recognition —“it is a face”—and are able to tell age, gender, and emotional expression but are unable to identify the specific person.

They rely on voice, posture, clothing, etc., to make the identification.

Commonly, patients are also unable to identify other specific members of a general class, e.g., car brands or birds. The disorder is commonly associated with unilateral or bilateral visual field defects.

It is often associated with achromatopsia because of involvement of the fibers projecting from the inferior lip of the occipital lobe. 

Prosopagnosia is associated with bilateral inferior occipitotemporal lesions affecting both fusiform gyri.

The posterior fusiform gyri contain an area called the fusiform face area that is specialized in facial processing and identification.

Adjacent areas are specialized in identifying individual members of other general classes of objects (birds, cars, buildings, etc.).

15585

Sign up to receive the trending updates and tons of Health Tips

Join SeekhealthZ and never miss the latest health information

15856