Prosopagnosia associated with a left occipitotemporal lesion

Neuropsychologia. 2008;46(8):2214-24. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.02.014. Epub 2008 Mar 10.

Abstract

Acquired prosopagnosia is usually associated with bilateral or right-sided lesions of the occipital or temporal lobes. In rare cases of prosopagnosia after left-sided lesions in left-handed subjects, it is attributed to a reversed hemispheric specialization for face processing. This study examines the face-processing functions of a left-handed prosopagnosic patient with a left-sided lesion affecting the region of the occipital face area and possibly the fusiform face area, to contrast his deficits with those of prosopagnosic patients with right-hemispheric lesions. Similar to those patients, he has a moderately severe reduction in familiarity judgments, is impaired in processing face configuration, and shares with some of those patients a greater failure to process eye than mouth information, indicating an altered pattern of facial saliency. He has a mild reduction in the identification of exemplars of non-face objects. Unlike those patients, he has better residual familiarity on a two-alternative forced-choice task and can processing facial configuration if given more time, indicating a reduction in efficiency rather than a severe limitation. He has more difficulty accessing semantic-biographic information from names. He has trouble with facial feature imagery but not imagery for global face shape. Thus this subject's deficits represent a combination of impaired familiarity and configuration processing (normally right-sided functions in right-handed subjects), and impaired feature processing and access to semantic-biographic information (normally left-sided functions). His prosopagnosia likely reflects partially anomalous rather than reversed lateralization of hemispheric perceptual functions.

Publication types

  • Case Reports
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Brain Injuries / complications*
  • Brain Injuries / pathology
  • Brain Mapping
  • Face
  • Functional Laterality
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Occipital Lobe / pathology*
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual / physiology
  • Photic Stimulation / methods
  • Prosopagnosia / etiology*
  • Prosopagnosia / pathology*
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Temporal Lobe / pathology*