-
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews.... 2016Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by severe face identity recognition problems that results from a failure to develop the... (Review)
Review
Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by severe face identity recognition problems that results from a failure to develop the mechanisms necessary for adequate face processing (Duchaine BC, Nakayama K. Developmental prosopagnosia: a window to content-specific face processing. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2006, 16:166-173.). It occurs in children and adults with normal visual acuity, and without intellectual impairments or known brain injuries. Given the importance of face recognition in daily life, and the detrimental effects of impaired face recognition, DP is an important area of study. Yet conventions for classifying individuals as DP for research purposes are poorly defined. In this focus paper, we discuss: (1) criteria for an operational definition of DP; 2) tests of face recognition and conventions for classifying individuals as DP; and 3) important considerations regarding common associations and dissociations, and cognitive heterogeneity in DP. We also highlight issues unique to studying DP in children, a relatively new endeavor that is proving to be an important complement to the work with adults. Ultimately, we hope to identify challenges researchers face when studying DP, and offer guidelines for others to consider when embarking on their own research pursuits on the topic. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
Topics: Adult; Age Factors; Child; Female; Humans; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Prosopagnosia; Research Design
PubMed: 26681428
DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1374 -
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and... Feb 2002From a series of glimpses, we perceive a seamless and richly detailed visual world. Cerebral damage, however, can destroy this illusion. In the case of Bálint's... (Review)
Review
OBJECTIVES
From a series of glimpses, we perceive a seamless and richly detailed visual world. Cerebral damage, however, can destroy this illusion. In the case of Bálint's syndrome, the visual world is perceived erratically, as a series of single objects. The goal of this review is to explore a range of psychological and anatomical explanations for this striking visual disorder and to propose new directions for interpreting the findings in Bálint's syndrome and related cerebral disorders of visual processing.
METHODS
Bálint's syndrome is reviewed in the light of current concepts and methodologies of vision research.
RESULTS
The syndrome affects visual perception (causing simultanagnosia/visual disorientation) and visual control of eye and hand movement (causing ocular apraxia and optic ataxia). Although it has been generally construed as a biparietal syndrome causing an inability to see more than one object at a time, other lesions and mechanisms are also possible. Key syndrome components are dissociable and comprise a range of disturbances that overlap the hemineglect syndrome. Inouye's observations in similar cases, beginning in 1900, antedated Bálint's initial report. Because Bálint's syndrome is not common and is difficult to assess with standard clinical tools, the literature is dominated by case reports and confounded by case selection bias, non-uniform application of operational definitions, inadequate study of basic vision, poor lesion localisation, and failure to distinguish between deficits in the acute and chronic phases of recovery.
CONCLUSIONS
Studies of Bálint's syndrome have provided unique evidence on neural substrates for attention, perception, and visuomotor control. Future studies should address possible underlying psychoanatomical mechanisms at "bottom up" and "top down" levels, and should specifically consider visual working memory and attention (including object based attention) as well as systems for identification of object structure and depth from binocular stereopsis, kinetic depth, motion parallax, eye movement signals, and other cues.
Topics: Agnosia; Attention; Brain Mapping; Cerebrovascular Disorders; Dominance, Cerebral; Humans; Occipital Lobe; Perceptual Disorders; Psychomotor Disorders; Visual Cortex; Visual Perception
PubMed: 11796765
DOI: 10.1136/jnnp.72.2.162 -
Frontiers in Bioscience (Elite Edition) Jun 2014The goal of the current paper is to review recent findings concerning the neural basis of congenital prosopagnosia (CP), a lifelong impairment in face processing that... (Review)
Review
The goal of the current paper is to review recent findings concerning the neural basis of congenital prosopagnosia (CP), a lifelong impairment in face processing that occurs in the absence of explicit brain damage. As such, CP offers a unique model for exploring the psychological and neural bases of normal face processing. We start by providing background about face perception and representation, and then review behavioral evidence gleaned from individuals with CP. We then review recent functional and structural neural investigations which offer a comprehensive account of the mechanisms underlying CP and support a characterization of this impairment as a disconnection syndrome rather than as a syndrome related to focal brain malfunction. We end the paper by offering a general framework for CP which, we believe, best integrates the behavioral and neural findings, and offers a platform for generating hypotheses for future studies. There remain many open issues in our understanding of CP and, to address these unanswered questions, we lay out several future research directions and testable hypotheses for further investigation.
Topics: Brain; Face; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Models, Neurological; Models, Psychological; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology
PubMed: 24896205
DOI: 10.2741/E705 -
The Tohoku Journal of Experimental... Aug 1990Of the higher disorders associated with posterior cerebral lesions two have received considerable attention in the past decade. These are prosopagnosia, the so-called... (Review)
Review
Of the higher disorders associated with posterior cerebral lesions two have received considerable attention in the past decade. These are prosopagnosia, the so-called agnosia for faces, and alexia without agraphia. Major aspects of these disorders are reviewed briefly.
Topics: Agnosia; Animals; Association; Brain Damage, Chronic; Cerebral Arteries; Corpus Callosum; Discrimination, Psychological; Dyslexia, Acquired; Face; Functional Laterality; Humans; Migraine Disorders; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Temporal Lobe; Visual Cortex
PubMed: 2082494
DOI: 10.1620/tjem.161.supplement_121 -
F1000Research 2019Prosopagnosia is an impairment in the ability to recognize faces and can be acquired after a brain lesion or occur as a developmental variant. Studies of prosopagnosia... (Review)
Review
Prosopagnosia is an impairment in the ability to recognize faces and can be acquired after a brain lesion or occur as a developmental variant. Studies of prosopagnosia make important contributions to our understanding of face processing and object recognition in the human visual system. We review four areas of advances in the study of this condition in recent years. First are issues surrounding the diagnosis of prosopagnosia, including the development and evaluation of newer tests and proposals for diagnostic criteria, especially for the developmental variant. Second are studies of the structural basis of prosopagnosia, including the application of more advanced neuroimaging techniques in studies of the developmental variant. Third are issues concerning the face specificity of the defect in prosopagnosia, namely whether other object processing is affected to some degree and in particular the status of visual word processing in light of recent predictions from the "many-to-many hypothesis". Finally, there have been recent rehabilitative trials of perceptual learning applied to larger groups of prosopagnosic subjects that show that face impairments are not immutable in this condition.
Topics: Facial Recognition; Humans; Learning; Neuroimaging; Prosopagnosia
PubMed: 31231507
DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.18492.1 -
Epilepsia Aug 2009In Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS), the prominent and often first symptom is auditory verbal agnosia, which may affect nonverbal sounds. It was early suggested that the... (Review)
Review
In Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS), the prominent and often first symptom is auditory verbal agnosia, which may affect nonverbal sounds. It was early suggested that the subsequent decline of speech expression might result from defective auditory analysis of the patient's own speech. Indeed, despite normal hearing levels, the children behave as if they were deaf, and very rapidly speech expression deteriorates and leads to the receptive aphasia typical of LKS. The association of auditory agnosia more or less restricted to speech with severe language decay prompted numerous studies aimed at specifying the defect in auditory processing and its pathophysiology. Long-term follow-up studies have addressed the issue of the outcome of verbal auditory processing and the development of verbal working memory capacities following the deprivation of phonologic input during the critical period of language development. Based on a review of neurophysiologic and neuropsychological studies of auditory and phonologic disorders published these last 20 years, we discuss the association of verbal agnosia and speech production decay, and try to explain the phonologic working memory deficit in the late outcome of LKS within the Hickok and Poeppel dual-stream model of speech processing.
Topics: Agnosia; Aphasia, Wernicke; Cerebral Cortex; Child; Cognition Disorders; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials, Auditory; Humans; Landau-Kleffner Syndrome; Language Development Disorders; Language Disorders; Longitudinal Studies; Memory, Short-Term; Sleep; Speech Disorders; Speech Production Measurement; Temporal Lobe
PubMed: 19682057
DOI: 10.1111/j.1528-1167.2009.02225.x -
Acta Neurologica Taiwanica Dec 2022A 56-year-old, right-handed man with no known past medical history presented with sudden onset of inability to recognize familiar individuals in person, including his...
A 56-year-old, right-handed man with no known past medical history presented with sudden onset of inability to recognize familiar individuals in person, including his wife and his mother. He also couldn't recognize himself in the mirror. There was no weakness, numbness, visual disturbances, or speech difficulty. Face recognition test, using Warrington Recognition Memory Test (1), showed the presence of complete prosopagnosia. The rest of the neurological and cranial nerves examinations were normal. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain showed restricted diffusion at the right temporal and occipital lobes (the fusiform gyrus) [Figure 1]. Magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA) of the brain was unremarkable. The 24-hours Holter monitoring showed paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. The transthoracic echocardiogram and carotid doppler ultrasound scan were normal. He was then treated with rivaroxaban 20mg daily for secondary stroke prevention in non-valvular atrial fibrillation. Face recognition skill training was started in the ward, which includes compensatory strategies to achieve person recognition by circumventing the face processing impairment, and remediation to enhance mnemonic function for face recognition. His prosopagnosia resolved completely after one week. Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, is an impairment in recognizing faces. The core defects are the loss of familiarity with previously known faces and the inability to recognize new faces. Patients with prosopagnosia may present with poor recognition of familiar individuals in person or in the photograph, confusion with plotlines in movies or plays with numerous characters, and difficulty distinguishing individuals wearing a uniform or similar clothing. Stroke is the most common cause of acquired prosopagnosia (2). Other less common aetiologies include traumatic brain injury, carbon monoxide poisoning, temporal lobectomy, and encephalitis. Literature has shown that areas involved in acquired prosopagnosia are the right fusiform gyrus or anterior temporal cortex, or both (3). The fusiform gyrus is part of the lateral temporal lobe and occipital lobe in 'Brodmann area 37' (4). The fusiform gyrus is considered a key structure for functionally specialized computations of high-level vision such as face perception, object recognition, and reading. Individuals with fusiform lesions are more likely to have apperceptive prosopagnosia, while those with anterior temporal lesions have an amnestic variant (5). In summary, prosopagnosia can be the sole presentation for the right fusiform gyrus stroke. It is important to recognize prosopagnosia for early stroke diagnosis and avoid misdiagnosing it as a psychiatric or ocular disorder. Keywords: prosopagnosia, fusiform gyrus, stroke.
Topics: Humans; Infarction; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Middle Aged; Occipital Lobe; Prosopagnosia; Stroke; Temporal Lobe
PubMed: 35470413
DOI: No ID Found -
Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation... Feb 2016Neurobehavioral and self-awareness changes are frequently observed following traumatic brain injury (TBI). These disturbances have been related to negative consequences... (Review)
Review
Neurobehavioral and self-awareness changes are frequently observed following traumatic brain injury (TBI). These disturbances have been related to negative consequences on functional outcomes, caregiver distress and social reintegration, representing therefore a challenge for clinical research. Some studies have recently been conducted to specifically explore apathetic and impulsive manifestations, as well as self-awareness impairments in patients with TBI. These findings underlined the heterogeneity of clinical manifestations for each behavioral disturbance and the diversity of psychological processes involved. In this context, new multidimensional approaches taking into account the various processes at play have been proposed to better understand and apprehend the complexity and dynamic nature of these problematic behaviors. In addition, the involvement of social and environmental factors as well as premorbid personality traits have increasingly been addressed. These new multidimensional frameworks have the potential to ensure targeted and effective rehabilitation by allowing a better identification and therefore consideration of the various mechanisms involved in the onset of problematic behaviors. In this context, the main objective of this position paper was to demonstrate the interest of multidimensional approaches in the understanding and rehabilitation of problematic behaviors in patients with TBI.
Topics: Agnosia; Apathy; Brain Injuries; Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorders; Humans; Impulsive Behavior
PubMed: 26585583
DOI: 10.1016/j.rehab.2015.09.002 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences May 1997Normal people rarely confuse the mirror image of an object with a real object so long as they realize they are looking into a mirror. We report a new neurological sign,...
Normal people rarely confuse the mirror image of an object with a real object so long as they realize they are looking into a mirror. We report a new neurological sign, 'mirror agnosia', following right parietal lesions in which this ability is severely compromised. We studied four right hemisphere stroke patients who had left visual field 'neglect'. i.e. they were indifferent to objects in their left visual field even though they were not blind. We then placed a vertical parasagittal mirror on each patients' right so that they could clearly see the reflection of objects placed in the (neglected) visual field. When shown a candy or pen on their left, the patients kept banging their hand into the mirror or groped behind it attempting to grab the reflection; they did not reach for the real object on the left, even though they were mentally quite lucid and knew they were looking into a mirror. Remarkably, all four patients kept complaining that the object was 'in the mirror', 'outside my reach' or 'behind the mirror'. Thus, even the patients' ability to make simple logical inferences about mirrors has been selectively warped to accommodate the strange new sensory world that they now inhabit. The finding may have implications for understanding how the brain creates representations of mirror reflections.
Topics: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Agnosia; Cerebral Infarction; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Visual Fields
PubMed: 9178535
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.1997.0091 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Dec 2000Much of the functioning of the motor system occurs without awareness. Nevertheless, we are aware of some aspects of the current state of the system and we can prepare... (Review)
Review
Much of the functioning of the motor system occurs without awareness. Nevertheless, we are aware of some aspects of the current state of the system and we can prepare and make movements in the imagination. These mental representations of the actual and possible states of the system are based on two sources: sensory signals from skin and muscles, and the stream of motor commands that have been issued to the system. Damage to the neural substrates of the motor system can lead to abnormalities in the awareness of action as well as defects in the control of action. We provide a framework for understanding how these various abnormalities of awareness can arise. Patients with phantom limbs or with anosognosia experience the illusion that they can move their limbs. We suggest that these representations of movement are based on streams of motor commands rather than sensory signals. Patients with utilization behaviour or with delusions of control can no longer properly link their intentions to their actions. In these cases the impairment lies in the representation of intended movements. The location of the neural damage associated with these disorders suggests that representations of the current and predicted state of the motor system are in parietal cortex, while representations of intended actions are found in prefrontal and premotor cortex.
Topics: Agnosia; Apraxias; Humans; Motion Perception; Motor Activity; Parietal Lobe; Phantom Limb; Psychotic Disorders
PubMed: 11205340
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2000.0734