Prosopagnosia (face blindness)
Overview
Prosopagnosia, also called face blindness, is a condition where you have difficulty recognising people's faces. There is no treatment, but there are things you can do to help you recognise people.
Symptoms
The main symptom of prosopagnosia is having difficulty recognising faces. You'll still see the parts of a face normally, but all faces may look the same to you. It affects people differently. Some people may not be able to tell the difference between strangers or people they do not know well. Others may not recognise the faces of friends and family, or even their own face. Other symptoms of prosopagnosia can include difficulty with: recognising emotions on people's facesrecognising people's age and genderrecognising characters and following plots in TV programmes or filmsrecognising other things, such as cars or animalsfinding your way around Difficulty recognising faces may make it harder to form relationships, or cause problems at work or school. This may affect your mental health and may lead tosocial anxietyordepression.
Causes
Prosopagnosia is caused by a problem with the part of the brain that processes information about faces. It can happen: if you do not develop the ability to recognise faces – this is the most common type and may run in familiesfrom brain damage, such as following astroke, head injury, inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), orAlzheimer's diseaseif you'reautistic