Prosopagnosia

Introduction "Face agnosia" - as the name implies, the patient cannot recognize the face of the person. The patient couldn't read a movie because he couldn't figure out the characters inside, and they couldn't find a specific person from the group photo. Patients with milder conditions can learn to keep a limited number of faces through training. Patients with more serious illness can only recognize their family members, and the most serious patients only recognize themselves. According to reports, in the past, the medical community believed that face agnosia was a very rare symptom and was mainly caused by a patient's brain defect. Until recently, the number of face agnosia cases recorded in the medical profession was only about one hundred.

Cause

According to reports, in the past, the medical community believed that face agnosia was a very rare symptom and was mainly caused by a patient's brain defect. Until recently, the number of face agnosia cases recorded in the medical profession was only about one hundred.

German scientists have found that face agnosia is much more prevalent than people think, and the genetic prevalence of this disease is very high. Thomas Grout, PhD, of the Münster Institute for Human Genetics, said that the new study showed that one out of every 50 people had face agnosia. Groot said: "This means that there are more than 5 million face agnostic patients in the United States alone. This is a very high proportion." Groot is an expert specializing in face agnosia, he is a Patients with face agnosia.

Groot's latest research report was published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Medical Genes, which caused strong repercussions in the medical community. In the study, Groot surveyed 689 German high school students and found that 17 face agnosia patients, 14 of whom had at least one close relative had the same problem. Groot suspects that face agnosia is caused by a single dominant gene, so if one of the parents is sick, the child has a 50% chance of getting sick.

According to reports, the specific situation of patients with face agnosia is different. For most patients, the problem is not the observation of the face - the patient can see the eyes, nose and mouth of the person as clearly as the normal person, but the problem is that when they see the face again, they can't recognize it. . Therefore, the troubles caused by face agnosia to patients' lives can be imagined. They may not be able to watch a movie because they can't figure out the characters inside; they can't find a specific person from the group photo.

Patients with milder conditions can train themselves to remember a limited number of faces (the study says that for patients, the process is like distinguishing different stones), and patients with more serious conditions can only recognize themselves. The family, the most serious patients only recognize themselves. One patient said that she had made a face in the mirror in a public bathroom with lots of people so that she could tell which one was in the mirror.

an examination

Related inspection

Nervous system examination

Most people with face agnosia have used a variety of methods to solve the problem of unrecognizable faces from a very early age.

They rely on people's hairstyles, sounds, body shapes or walking postures to recognize people; they try to avoid places where they may encounter acquaintances; when they are walking on the street, they pretend to be concentrating on what they want to do; they are against any People all show a very friendly (or very unfriendly) attitude.

Differential diagnosis

The patient cannot recognize the person's face.

Scientists have not figured out how the human brain perceives the face. It only knows that part of this perception is innate and involves many parts of the brain. For example, babies prefer to look at their mother's face rather than the face of a stranger, and they can quickly learn to distinguish between male and female faces. Scientists have found that patients with face agnosia have a defect in their brain.

The material in this site is intended to be of general informational use and is not intended to constitute medical advice, probable diagnosis, or recommended treatments.