The human brain is able to quickly recognize faces and interpret patterns, separating familiar and safe faces from those that should cause wariness and fear. However, this setup in the head sometimes fails.
Scientists from the Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College held volunteer study. A 58-year-old American complains that he sees the world differently from others. All human faces are perceived by him as demonic.
He was diagnosed with a rare neurological disease – prosopometamorphopsia (PMO). Studying the features of his illness will allow scientists to better understand the nature of this disorder, and at the same time understand how the brain separates friends from enemies.
Before contacting the Dartmouth laboratory, the patient observed for two and a half years how the faces of those around him were distorted. He saw grooves on the forehead and cheeks, and the eyes and mouths were stretched. This gave them a demonic appearance.
At first, this caused anxiety for the patient, but over time he got used to the creepy masks that his brain put on people. He learned to recognize them despite the distortion. The authors of the study tried to figure out the cause of the emerging disease.
Bipolar disorder or PTSD was suspected. The possibility of external influence was also considered. At about 40 years old, the man suffered a head injury. And this could affect the manifestation of a rare disease. And four months before the first symptoms, he inhaled carbon monoxide.
Psychologists from Dartmouth College conducted a series of tests. They found that the patient’s disease manifested itself in an atypical way. Typically, people with this diagnosis see various facial distortions. But they change equally both in reality and when viewing photographs and videos. And the patient being studied had a distorted perception only for real people. In photos and videos, he perceived faces as normal.
Scientists do not yet know what type of disorder prosopometamorphopsia should be classified as. For now it is considered as a visual distortion, that is, it is one of the more than 40 types of Alice in Wonderland syndrome. This is the name given to various types of incorrect perception of surrounding objects. The authors of this study suggested that the patient’s condition was affected by a small centimeter-sized lesion that was found on the hippocampus during the tomography.
Scientists note the courage of the subject. Because often people with such a disorder do not talk about it, fearing that they will be considered mentally ill. Indeed, some doctors diagnose schizophrenia in such cases. However, the authors of the work intend to find a physiological explanation for the strange disease.
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