Intra-cerebral electrical stimulation of a face-sensitive cortical area causes transient specific impairment in face recognition

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Intra-cerebral electrical stimulation of a face-sensitive cortical area causes transient specific impairment in face recognition Jacques Jonas1* 1 Université de Lorraine, France We report the first case of transient impairment in face recognition (prosopagnosia) induced by intra-cerebral electrical stimulation. The patient was a 32-year-old right-handed woman (KV) who has medically intractable right occipital epilepsy. She never complained of difficulties in face recognition and present with normal face recognition abilities. Intra-cerebral electrodes were implanted stereotactically to record seizures and to perform focal electrical stimulation in order to define epileptogenic and functional zones. During stimulations of right and left occipito-temporal contacts (biphasic pulse; 50 Hz train of 5 s; from 1 to 1.8 mA), she was asked to name previously correctly recognized famous faces, objects and scenes. Six of seven bipolar stimulations including one common contact (named O7) located within the right inferior occipital gyrus reproducibly induced transient prosopagnosia which completely recovered immediately upon termination of the stimulation. The patient reported a disturbance in perceiving the spatial relationship of facial elements and being unable to perceive the face as a whole. Stimulations at this site never produced visual distortions, deficit in object and scenes recognition or epileptic discharges. Stimulations of all other contacts and electrodes did not elicit prosopagnosia. The brain region of interest was mapped using fMRI and intra-cerebral ERPs by contrasting responses to pictures of faces and objects. The eloquent stimulation site O7 was located exactly within the right occipital face area (rOFA). A N170 face-specific potential was also recorded at the stimulation site reinforcing the functional specificity of this area for face perception. We also found a N170 face-specific potential at an anterior site F6, located at the edge of the right FFA. However, its stimulation did not evoke any prosopagnosia. These findings provide evidences that the right OFA is necessary for normal face perception as part of a bilateral occipito-temporal network of face-sensitive areas. Keywords: face perception, OFA, Electrical Stimulation, Prosopagnosia, N170 Conference: Belgian Brain Council, Liège, Belgium, 27 Oct - 27 Oct, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Higher Brain Functions in health and disease: cognition and memory Citation: Jonas J (2012). Intra-cerebral electrical stimulation of a face-sensitive cortical area causes transient specific impairment in face recognition. Conference Abstract: Belgian Brain Council. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.210.00093 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 16 Aug 2012; Published Online: 12 Sep 2012. * Correspondence: Dr. Jacques Jonas, Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France, jac.jonas@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Jacques Jonas Google Jacques Jonas Google Scholar Jacques Jonas PubMed Jacques Jonas Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.