Visual object agnosia, prosopagnosia, achromatopsia, loss of visual imagery, and autobiographical amnesia following recovery from cortical blindness: Case M.H

• Published in: Neuropsychologia 1993-06, Vol.31 (6), p.571-589
• Main Author: Ogden, Jenni A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Agnosia - diagnosis; Agnosia - etiology; Agnosia - physiopathology; Biological and medical sciences; Blindness - diagnosis; Blindness - etiology; Blindness - physiopathology; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Diseases - diagnosis; Brain Diseases - etiology; Brain Diseases - physiopathology; Brain Injuries - complications; Brain Injuries - diagnosis; Brain Injuries - physiopathology; Color Vision Defects - diagnosis; Color Vision Defects - etiology; Color Vision Defects - physiopathology; Glasgow Coma Scale; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Memory Disorders - diagnosis; Memory Disorders - etiology; Memory Disorders - physiopathology; Neuropsychological Tests; Occipital Lobe - physiopathology; Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Tomography, X-Ray Computed; Vision Disorders - diagnosis; Vision Disorders - etiology; Vision Disorders - physiopathology; Visual Acuity; Visual Cortex - physiopathology; Visual Perception
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/0028-3932(93)90053-3

A number of higher visual deficits accompanied by severe retrograde autobiographical memory loss following bilateral medial occipital infarctions are described in case M.H. Assessment of M.H.'s visual object agnosia and prospagnosia suggested that he was unable to integrate the elements of a percept to form a meaningful whole. This deficit may occur at the level the percept is encoded into the visual buffer and inspected. M.H. also describes a loss of visual memories, and it is hypothesized that this may similarly be a result of an inability to integrate the elements of the visual representation (e.g. of an object or face) following its generation from long-term visual memory store into the visual buffer. M.H.'s retrograde autobiographical memory loss is postulated to be a consequence of the severe impoverishment of episodic memories that must occur when events originally stored multimodally, must be recalled without any visual component.