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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 -
Psychoneuroendocrinology Jul 2023A neurocognitive phenotype of post-COVID-19 infection has recently been described that is characterized by a lack of awareness of memory impairment (i.e., anosognosia),...
BACKGROUND
A neurocognitive phenotype of post-COVID-19 infection has recently been described that is characterized by a lack of awareness of memory impairment (i.e., anosognosia), altered functional connectivity in the brain's default mode and limbic networks, and an elevated monocyte count. However, the relationship between these cognitive and brain functional connectivity alterations in the chronic phase with the level of cytokines during the acute phase has yet to be identified.
AIM
Determine whether acute cytokine type and levels is associated with anosognosia and functional patterns of brain connectivity 6-9 months after infection.
METHODS
We analyzed the predictive value of the concentration of acute cytokines (IL-1RA, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IFNγ, G-CSF, GM-CSF) (cytokine panel by multiplex immunoassay) in the plasma of 39 patients (mean age 59 yrs, 38-78) in relation to their anosognosia scores for memory deficits via stepwise linear regression. Then, associations between the different cytokines and brain functional connectivity patterns were analyzed by MRI and multivariate partial least squares correlations for the whole group.
RESULTS
Stepwise regression modeling allowed us to show that acute TNFα levels predicted (R = 0.145; β = -0.38; p = .017) and were associated (r = -0.587; p < .001) with scores of anosognosia for memory deficits observed 6-9 months post-infection. Finally, high TNFα levels were associated with hippocampal, temporal pole, accumbens nucleus, amygdala, and cerebellum connectivity.
CONCLUSION
Increased plasma TNFα levels in the acute phase of COVID-19 predict the presence of long-term anosognosia scores and changes in limbic system functional connectivity.
Topics: Humans; Agnosia; Cognitive Dysfunction; COVID-19; Cytokines; Memory Disorders; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha
PubMed: 37104966
DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106104 -
Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation... Jun 2017This review article summarizes neuropsychological descriptions of abnormal body representations in brain-damaged patients and recent neuroscientific investigations of... (Review)
Review
This review article summarizes neuropsychological descriptions of abnormal body representations in brain-damaged patients and recent neuroscientific investigations of their sensorimotor underpinnings in healthy participants. The first part of the article describes unilateral disorders of the bodily self, such as asomatognosia, feelings of amputation, supernumerary phantom limbs and somatoparaphrenia, as well as descriptions of non-lateralized disorders of the bodily self, including Alice in Wonderland syndrome and autoscopic hallucinations. Because the sensorimotor mechanisms of these disorders are unclear, we focus on clinical descriptions and insist on the importance of reporting clinical cases to better understand the full range of bodily disorders encountered in neurological diseases. The second part of the article presents the advantages of merging neuroscientific approaches of the bodily self with immersive virtual reality, robotics and neuroprosthetics to foster the understanding of the multisensory, motor and neural mechanisms of bodily representations.
Topics: Agnosia; Alice in Wonderland Syndrome; Body Image; Brain Injuries; Delusions; Depersonalization; Hallucinations; Humans; Phantom Limb; Robotics; Virtual Reality
PubMed: 27318928
DOI: 10.1016/j.rehab.2016.04.007 -
Neuropsychologia May 2018The cognitive organisation of nonverbal auditory knowledge remains poorly defined. Deficits of environmental sound as well as word and visual object knowledge are...
The cognitive organisation of nonverbal auditory knowledge remains poorly defined. Deficits of environmental sound as well as word and visual object knowledge are well-recognised in semantic dementia. However, it is unclear how auditory cognition breaks down in this disorder and how this relates to deficits in other knowledge modalities. We had the opportunity to study a patient with a typical syndrome of semantic dementia who had extensive premorbid knowledge of birds, allowing us to assess the impact of the disease on the processing of auditory in relation to visual and verbal attributes of this specific knowledge category. We designed a novel neuropsychological test to probe knowledge of particular avian characteristics (size, behaviour [migratory or nonmigratory], habitat [whether or not primarily water-dwelling]) in the nonverbal auditory, visual and verbal modalities, based on a uniform two-alternative-forced-choice procedure. The patient's performance was compared to healthy older individuals of similar birding experience. We further compared his performance on this test of bird knowledge with his knowledge of familiar human voices and faces. Relative to healthy birder controls, the patient showed marked deficits of bird call and bird name knowledge but relatively preserved knowledge of avian visual attributes and retained knowledge of human voices and faces. In both the auditory and visual modalities, his knowledge of the avian characteristics of size and behaviour was intact whereas his knowledge of the associated characteristic of habitat was deficient. This case provides further evidence that nonverbal auditory knowledge has a fractionated organisation that can be differentially targeted in semantic dementia.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Aged; Agnosia; Animals; Auditory Perception; Birds; Female; Humans; Knowledge; Male; Middle Aged; Photic Stimulation; Recognition, Psychology; Semantics; Sound
PubMed: 29572063
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.03.024 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Apr 2024Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is characterised by difficulties recognising face identities and is associated with diverse co-occurring object recognition...
Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is characterised by difficulties recognising face identities and is associated with diverse co-occurring object recognition difficulties. The high co-occurrence rate and heterogeneity of associated difficulties in DP is an intrinsic feature of developmental conditions, where co-occurrence of difficulties is the rule, rather than the exception. However, despite its name, cognitive and neural theories of DP rarely consider the developmental context in which these difficulties occur. This leaves a large gap in our understanding of how DP emerges in light of the developmental trajectory of face recognition. Here, we argue that progress in the field requires re-considering the developmental origins of differences in face recognition abilities, rather than studying the end-state alone. In practice, considering development in DP necessitates a re-evaluation of current approaches in recruitment, design, and analyses.
Topics: Humans; Prosopagnosia; Facial Recognition; Visual Perception; Pattern Recognition, Visual
PubMed: 38460488
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.02.006 -
Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation... Sep 2021Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has long been considered a pure motor neurodegenerative disease. However, now, extra-motor manifestations such as...
BACKGROUND
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has long been considered a pure motor neurodegenerative disease. However, now, extra-motor manifestations such as cognitive-behavioral disorders are considered not rare and are even a severity factor of the disease. Experiencing anosognosia (i.e., the inability to recognize neurological symptoms) might affect care and treatment compliance in ALS. Regardless, this pivotal feature has been little investigated.
OBJECTIVES
By comparing patients' and caregivers' reports, we analysed whether patients with ALS would experience a lack of awareness about their executive disorders and their apathy symptoms.
METHODS
From the ALS reference center in Paris, we included 85 patients (47 men, mean [SD] age 60.5 [12] years and ALS-Functional Rating Scale-revised score 8 to 46) and their primary family caregivers who all completed the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX) and the Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES). Overall scores and answers were compared by agreement/disagreement statistical methods.
RESULTS
Caregivers reported higher levels of cognitive-behavioral disorders than did patients, but reports matched when cognitive-behavioral disorders were absent or mild. With published DEX and AES cutoffs, 32% and 51% of patients had executive disorders and apathy, respectively. In these patients with significant impairment, Bland-Altman plots (i.e., visual display agreement that represents the difference between the patient's and caregiver's scores as a function of their average) showed a strong discrepancy between joint reports: patients underestimated their symptoms by a mean bias of -6.81 DEX points (95% confidence interval -11.88, -1.75) and -8.85 AES points (95% confidence interval -11.72, -5.98). We found no clear relationship between bulbar or spinal ALS subtypes and anosognosia.
CONCLUSIONS
ALS patients with a cognitive-behavioral phenotype show anosognosia by a mismatch between self and proxy reports, which warrants further investigation in neuroimaging. Systematic longitudinal screening of anosognosia is needed to propose targeted psychoeducation in patient-caregiver dyads showing disagreement.
Topics: Agnosia; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; Apathy; Cross-Sectional Studies; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Neurodegenerative Diseases
PubMed: 33065300
DOI: 10.1016/j.rehab.2020.08.004 -
Current Biology : CB Apr 2016A Quick guide to developmental prosopagnosia, a condition definied by problems in recognising faces that, in contrast with acquired prosopagnosia, develop in the absence...
A Quick guide to developmental prosopagnosia, a condition definied by problems in recognising faces that, in contrast with acquired prosopagnosia, develop in the absence of manifest brain injury.
Topics: Face; Humans; Neuropsychological Tests; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology
PubMed: 27115682
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.008 -
Neuropsychologia Aug 2016Developmental prosopagnosia has received increased attention in recent years, but as yet has no confirmed genetic or structural markers. It is not certain whether this... (Review)
Review
Developmental prosopagnosia has received increased attention in recent years, but as yet has no confirmed genetic or structural markers. It is not certain whether this condition reflects simply the low-end of the spectrum of normal face recognition, an 'under-development', or a pathologic failure to develop such mechanisms, a 'mal-development'. This difference in views creates challenges for the diagnosis of developmental prosopagnosia by behavioural criteria alone, which also vary substantially between studies, with secondary effects on issues such as determining its prevalence. After review of the literature and the problems inherent to diagnoses based solely on behavioural data, we propose as a starting discussion point a set of two primary and four secondary criteria for the diagnosis of developmental prosopagnosia.
Topics: Face; Humans; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology
PubMed: 27312748
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.06.008 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Feb 1998Studies of patients with focal brain damage suggest that topographical representation is subserved by dissociable neural subcomponents. This article offers a condensed... (Review)
Review
Studies of patients with focal brain damage suggest that topographical representation is subserved by dissociable neural subcomponents. This article offers a condensed review of the literature of "topographical disorientation" and describes several functional MRI studies designed to test hypotheses generated by that review. Three hypotheses are considered: (i) The parahippocampal cortex is critically involved in the acquisition of exocentric spatial information in humans; (ii) separable, posterior, dorsal, and ventral cortical regions subserve the perception and long term representation of position and identity, respectively, of landmarks; and (iii) there is a distinct area of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex that responds maximally to building stimuli and may play a role in the perception of salient landmarks. We conclude with a discussion of the inferential limitations of neuroimaging and lesion studies. It is proposed that combining these two approaches allows for inferences regarding the computational involvement of a neuroanatomical substrate in a given cognitive process although neither method can strictly support this conclusion alone.
Topics: Agnosia; Animals; Brain; Brain Mapping; Head Injuries, Closed; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Maze Learning; Models, Neurological; Space Perception; Temporal Lobe
PubMed: 9448249
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.95.3.839 -
Arquivos de Neuro-psiquiatria Apr 2021Anosognosia, i.e. lack of awareness of one's own symptoms, is a very common finding in patients with dementia and is related to neuropsychiatric symptoms and worse...
BACKGROUND
Anosognosia, i.e. lack of awareness of one's own symptoms, is a very common finding in patients with dementia and is related to neuropsychiatric symptoms and worse prognosis. Although dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the second most common form of degenerative dementia, literature on anosognosia in this disease is scarce.
OBJECTIVES
This paper aimed to review the current evidence on anosognosia in patients with DLB, including its prevalence in comparison with other neurological conditions, its severity and anatomical correlations.
METHODS
Database searches were performed in PubMed, Web of Knowledge and PsycINFO for articles assessing anosognosia in DLB. A total of 243 studies were retrieved, but only six were included in the review.
RESULTS
Potential risk of selection, comparison or outcome biases were detected in relation to all the studies selected. Most of the studies used self-report memory questionnaires to assess cognitive complaints and compared their results to scores from informant-based instruments or to participants' cognitive performance in neuropsychological tasks. Subjects with DLB had worse awareness regarding memory than healthy older controls, but the results concerning differences in anosognosia between DLB and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients were inconsistent across studies. Presence of AD pathology and neuroimaging biomarkers appeared to increase the prevalence of anosognosia in individuals with DLB.
CONCLUSION
Anosognosia is a common manifestation of DLB, but it is not clear how its prevalence and severity compare with AD. Co-existence of AD pathology seems to play a role in memory deficit awareness in DLB.
Topics: Agnosia; Alzheimer Disease; Biomarkers; Humans; Lewy Body Disease; Neuroimaging; Neuropsychological Tests
PubMed: 34133514
DOI: 10.1590/0004-282X-ANP-2020-0247