[Prosopagnosia and disturbance of color recognition during recovery from cortical blindness]

Neuropsychologic findings during recovery from cortical blindness are described in four right-handed patients (two female, two male) aged 53 to 70 years. The lesions were due to occlusion of both posterior cerebral arteries (Case 1) and vascular spasm following subarachnoidal hemorrhage (Case 3) or angiography (Cases 2 and 4). Complete blindness lasted for 3 months until death in Case 1, 4 weeks in case 2, and 1 to 2 days in Cases 3 and 4. Confusional states and visual hallucinations were pronounced in three cases. Anosognosia (Anton's syndrome) was most pronounced in a patient with occlusion of both posterior cerebral arteries and less obvious in the remaining patients. During the recovery phase, symptoms of right hemisphere involvement were prominent with left-sided hemianopsia and diminished optokinetic nystagmus to the left, prosopagnosia in two cases, and dysmorphopsia with altered physiognomic recognition in one case. Transient disturbances of color recognition occurred in three patients. The observations are discussed with reference to clinical and neuropathologic findings of the literature.