Of all the disorders we have covered and discussed in class, prosopagnosia has been the most difficult for me to imagine living with. While I understand that different areas of the brain are used in different stages of vision and recognition, but I cannot imagine what the evolutionary benefit is of having such important and necessary processing centers relegated to one are of the brain only. In an evolutionary sense, the ability to recognize faces seems to be paramount. It would be crucially important to be able to recognize a friend from an enemy at a distance if you were living in a hunter-gatherer world. This ability is so important that it seems foolish to have the location or locations necessary for it to all be located in one area of the brain.
While it is not concretely known which area of the brain cause prosopagnosia when damaged, it appears that damage to the right inferior temporal lobe is closely associated with the condition, as most patients who suffer from prosopagnosia also have damage to this area of the brain. While it might seem somewhat strange to consider the evolutionary benefits of planning for brain damage, it strikes me as strange to isolate such an important system to an area that can be damaged. However, back to my original point: what would living with prosopagnosia be like? What would it be like to see your mother, or roommate, walking towards you, be able to see and identify their ears and cheeks and facial features, to even be able to tell what color their eyes are, but to not be able to remember their name. Try as I might, it seems to be an impossible thing to do, there’s simply no way that I can imagine not being able to remember that anyone’s face looks like. One of the most interesting aspects about prosopagnosia, is that it does not alter your ability to remember a person’s voice. If you were suffering from prosopagnosia, and your mother and a complete stranger was standing behind you and called your name, you would turn around and expect to see your mother, but instead you would see two people who as far as you could tell were both complete strangers.
I find prosopagnosia to be a fascinating condition, in part because it is one that I cannot possibly imagine living with. While we have moved on to development, I wanted to use this blog entry to briefly talk about what I find to be one of the most interesting items that we have covered this term.
April 6th, 2008
