Failure to evoke visual images in a case of long-lasting cortical blindness

The paper reports the investigation of a 26-year-old man affected by cortical blindness for over 4 years. The patient showed a remarkable preservation of intelligence, language skills and a very mild memory disorder. He was, however, unable to perform any tasks requiring the use of information relat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neurocase 1996-09, Vol.2 (5), p.381-394
Main Authors: Policardi, Erica, Perani, Daniela, Zago, Stefano, Grassi, Franco, Fazio, Ferruccio, Ladavas, Elisabetta
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:The paper reports the investigation of a 26-year-old man affected by cortical blindness for over 4 years. The patient showed a remarkable preservation of intelligence, language skills and a very mild memory disorder. He was, however, unable to perform any tasks requiring the use of information related to the visual appearance of places, symbols, objects and animals. In contrast, the performance on tasks exploring his knowledge of functional aspects of objects, animals and vegetables was unimpaired. This neuropsychological profile could be explained by an inability to derive internal visual images from long-term memory, which would drastically reduce the ability to retrieve visual semantic memories. Assessments of cerebral metabolism with [ 18 F]FDG and PET revealed a calcarine and associative occipital hypometabolism, extending to the inferior and mesial temporal cortex.
ISSN:1355-4794
1465-3656
DOI:10.1080/13554799608402413