Prosopagnosia (Face Blindness) defect and the best means to cure it

The signs of endless indifference emerged after a silly disagreement between John and his fiancé, who was also, his colleague at work. After this controversy, John continued throughout the year to ignore her existence.

When asked by his friend about the secret of this strange alienation, John said:"For my part, I did not see her again! I may have seen her portrait in my imagination several times, but I have not met her yet!".

Despite these allegations, his friend did not believe, where John's fiancé is constantly on the work. But, John insists that he did not meet her or even see her by chance again. And strangest, he says that after several months of this absurd dispute I cannot remember what the shape of my fiancée!

And this problem was faced by John throughout his youth, as people pass by him and say to him (Hello and welcome), but he is surprised! He does not remember these people or the place where he had seen them before. This always strikes him with shame. This situation is repeated in the same way with people he has met several times before.

Social attitudes are often embarrassing for him because he cannot remember the faces of others. Making him shy and withdrawn and has a high degree of anxiety at any social occasion he has to attend.

But, even artists and celebrities who previously could know the name of any of them from just looking at his face on television or on the cinema screen. However, now it is possible to pass one of the posters of these celebrities or pictures without even being able to remember that he saw this face before!

It was only a few years ago when his problem was diagnosed by a specialist as suffering from a face Blindness disease known as prosopagnosia. It is a condition in which the patient is unable to recognize people's faces. Thus, the crisis has become clear to him.

This does not mean that he has a serious brain disorder or a rare disease, this condition is so common that you either suffer (slightly) from it or know someone who is more affected.

Many people may be surprised by the fact that their condition is medically diagnosed and confirmed the incidence of faces blindness known as Prosopagnosia. However, most people that infected with this disease are not primarily aware of the problem or the disease of face recognition.

The first case of face blindness (Prosopagnosia) was identified in 1947 when the German neurologist Joachim Bodamer diagnosed the condition of a 24-year-old man. He was shot in the head, but the injury was not fatal.

Despite his recovery from injury, he lost the ability to recognize the faces of his colleagues and relatives. And even failed to recognize his face which looks (out of) from the mirror.

Since this year and until a few years, doctors did not diagnose many cases of blindness of the recognition of the faces (Prosopagnosia) and not described in the medical books, all these cases result from injury or damage to the brain, and all these cases were considered very rare for that.

But, in recent years doctors have known another form of face blindness (Prosopagnosia) that is not caused by brain injury known as (Developmental Prosopagnosia) Which is inherent to the patient since birth and develops and grows during successive stages of the life of the person who suffers from his ability to recognize faces.

Research went further, confirming that developmental face blindness (Developmental Prosopagnosia) is very common. Statistics from Harvard University shows that about 2% of people have a certain degree of facial recognition disease (Prosopagnosia).

Compared with other diseases, 2.5% of people have color blindness and 5% of people have reading impairment

These results stunned the medical community as well as the owners of cases of blindness of face recognition (Prosopagnosia), and if you do not understand the meaning of the ability to recognize the faces you do not realize that you should be able to do so.

Perhaps this shows the lack of clarity of developmental face blindness (Developmental Prosopagnosia) until recently, the situation is similar to the question of a person suffering from a disease of color blindness (what do you mean not see colors)?!

The discovery of developmental Prosopagnosia (more than researchers think) has shown that there is an urgent need for psychologists and neuroscientists to settle the debate about how the human brain recognizes the faces of people.

And preliminary studies based on the imaging of the brain of people who do not have face blindness (Prosopagnosia) indicate that there are (many) areas in the brain respond and interact selectively when you see the faces of people.

Among these areas, researchers and neuroscientists found that the (fusiform gyrus region) lights up in radiographs in response to the appearance of the human face, as well as facial shapes.

However, the fusiform gyrus recognizes and responds to other objects, albeit to a lesser extent, thus questioning the idea that it responds to the human face specifically.

So the researchers began to believe that the fusiform gyrus does not recognize faces alone. After examining the cases of some people with brain damage another important area has emerged in the subject of face recognition, which is (Occipital face area). They also appear to be necessary in the face recognition process because any damage to the fusiform gyrus or occipital face area causes problems in facial recognition.

But, all this has not resolved the controversy over how the brain defines human faces. Does the human brain have areas dedicated to this task or face recognition is performed by all areas and cells of the brain. These areas recognize not only the faces but also the shapes and views of other objects. Whether the types and forms of some pets or dangerous tools or the forms and types of cars.

This, in turn, is part of a broader debate on how the brain processes the types of visual information. Does it have a separate tool to handle each task or is it as close as a general information processor.

And with the diagnosis of more cases of face blindness (Prosopagnosia) each year. And with more papers published about  the brains of patients with the loss of ability to recognize faces may researchers determine whether there are specialized areas of faces recognition in the human brain or the brain as an integrated device has the overall ability to recognize faces.

When scientific research on the subject of face blindness (Prosopagnosia) to explain why some people cannot identify their friends and relatives, we can reach the healing answer in the question of how to treat the disease of face recognition (Prosopagnosia).

Treatment of  face blindness (Prosopagnosia)

The bad news is that there are no pharmaceutical treatments, surgery, or any other effective method of treatment other than developing the way of recognizing faces. The brain has great flexibility to adjust its position and push other areas in it (to do) works or tasks that this brain area is not supposed to do.

Therefore, people with face blindness (Prosopagnosia) need a method of training that they constantly do to push their brains to distinguish and remember faces. Researchers at the University of California have succeeded in developing a training program for people with severe developmental face blindness (Developmental Prosopagnosia) that helps them recognize the faces of their friends, colleagues, relatives, and important people in their lives.

The patients did not find it difficult to identify the different faces in laboratory tests. And in continuous training it became easy for patients to identify the faces of people in the normal life.

People with face blindness (Prosopagnosia) have done a good job of overcoming their problem and have been able to recognize the faces of people well, unless the (familiar) person has changed their shape significantly by changing his hair style and changing his clothes too.

The idea in the face blindness training program is to use other methods and guides to help remember the person's shape and face later on. These signs, such as hair, facial and clothing marks, and sound, the odor may be added if the person has a distinctive smell.

For example, if a patient meets someone he does not know. Here, he should not just shake his hands. Instead, he should begin to store this person's formal information in his memory. He begins with hair (top to bottom).

Then the face is quickly explored to identify a mark and the mark may be the nose of this person (a bit large), the clothing of this person is a white shirt and black trousers and his shoes also black. Finally, if the patient smells a characteristic smell of the person (for example, a rose perfume), the patient should enter this information into the group of information about the stranger.

All this information can be collected in moments. And when this person presents himself and more information about him. The Prosopagnosia patient can later remember some of the stored mark  and therefore can remember the stranger even after a long period of time.

This exercise should be done on an ongoing basis every day, even when the Prosopagnosia patient sees himself in the mirror he has to do a quick exercise. And within a few months, his brain establishes other areas to identify the faces and (other people) he needs to remember and interact with them