A functional MRI study of face recognition in patients with prosopagnosia

An fMRI investigation was conducted to determine whether patients with impa ired face recognition, a deficit known as prosopagnosia, would show functio nal activation in the fusiform gyrus, the neural substrate for face process ing, when viewing faces. While the patients did show activation in the fusi form gyrus, with significantly more voxels in posterior areas than their co ntrol subjects, this activation was not sufficient for face processing. In one of the patients, the posterior activation was particularly evident in t he left hemisphere, which is thought to be involved in feature-based strate gies of face perception. We conclude that an increased reliance on feature- based processing in prosopagnosia leads to a recruitment of neurons in post erior regions of the fusiform gyrus, regions that are not ideally suited fo r processing faces. NeuroReport 12:1581-1587 (C) 2001 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.