Splenial Corpus Callosum Infarction Presenting with Unilateral Prosopometamorphopsia: A Case Report

Abstract

Background Prosopometamorphopsia is a disorder of face perception in which faces appear distorted to the perceiver. Cases with unilateral prosopometamorphopsia caused by splenial lesion have been very rarely reported. Case Report A 52-year-old right-handed woman complained that the left half of people's faces looked distorted. She stated that objects other than the face looked normal. Brain magnetic resonance imaging revealed an infarction of the left splenium of the corpus callosum. Electroencephalography and automated perimetry were normal. Conclusions The mechanism of unilateral prosopometamorphopsia remains unclear. However, it could be a dominant hemisphere-specific disconnection sign.

Prosopometamorphopsia and alexia following left splenial corpus callosum infarction: Case report and literature review

“…Prosopometamorphopsia is known to be caused by splenial corpus callosum infarction [14] . In this case, prosopometamorphopsia likely occurred because facial recognition information was interrupted by the splenial infarction as it was being transferred to the facial fusiform area after being processed in the face perception areas of the occipital lobe.…”

“…We have added our case report to the table of previous reports on prosopometamorphopsia caused by splenial lesion constructed by Lee et al [14] ( Table 1 ).…”

“…Visual fibers project from the occipital cortex of one hemisphere of the brain and connect through the splenium to the opposite hemisphere [6] . Lesions of the posterior section of the corpus callosum, known as the splenium, and the immediately-posterior retrosplenium cortex, are known to be associated with metamorphopsia [4] , [6] , [9] , [12] , [14] , [22] , amnesia [1] , [21] , [26] , [28] , and alexia [5] , [10] , [23] , although it is unusual for more than one of these symptoms to be present in a single patient. The condition metamorphopsia refers to general distortions in vision, often associated with macular degeneration.…”