Event-related potentials reflect impaired face recognition in patients with congenital prosopagnosia.

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to faces have been shown to be altered in patients suffering from prosopagnosia. In this report we present ERP findings from two patients suffering from a congenital form of prosopagnosia, with other visual and cognitive functions being spared and without any structural abnormalities as assessed by anatomical brain imaging. Subjects were presented with photographs of faces and houses, and they had to respond to photographs of hands. Both patients did not show a difference in N170 amplitude to faces compared to houses, whereas there was a significant N170 difference of these two stimulus classes in healthy control subjects.