Acquired prosopagnosia is usually a consequence of bilateral or right hemisphere lesions and is often associated with topographical disorientation and dyschromatopsia. Left temporo-occipital lesions sometimes result in a face recognition disorder but in a context of visual object agnosia with spared familiarity feelings for faces, usually in left-handers. We describe a patient with a left temporo-occipital hemorrhagic lesion unexpectedly resulting in a deficit of face familiarity, which could represent a mild form of associative prosopagnosia. Our patient failed to feel familiarity feelings even with very well-known famous faces but had neither visual object agnosia nor defects with semantics or naming of celebrities. This was confirmed even when the patient was re-tested a year later. We speculate that a graded lateralization of face processing could be at the basis of occasional cases of prosopagnosia.
Papagno, C., Barvas, E., Tettamanti, M., Gainotti, G., Selective defects of face familiarity associated to a left temporo-occipital lesion, <<NEUROLOGICAL SCIENCES>>, 2020; 2020 (N/A): N/A-N/A. [doi:10.1007/s10072-020-04581-5] [http://hdl.handle.net/10807/163647]
Selective defects of face familiarity associated to a left temporo-occipital lesion
Gainotti, Guido
2020
Abstract
Acquired prosopagnosia is usually a consequence of bilateral or right hemisphere lesions and is often associated with topographical disorientation and dyschromatopsia. Left temporo-occipital lesions sometimes result in a face recognition disorder but in a context of visual object agnosia with spared familiarity feelings for faces, usually in left-handers. We describe a patient with a left temporo-occipital hemorrhagic lesion unexpectedly resulting in a deficit of face familiarity, which could represent a mild form of associative prosopagnosia. Our patient failed to feel familiarity feelings even with very well-known famous faces but had neither visual object agnosia nor defects with semantics or naming of celebrities. This was confirmed even when the patient was re-tested a year later. We speculate that a graded lateralization of face processing could be at the basis of occasional cases of prosopagnosia.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.