Two nerve clusters in the brain have been pinpointed as responsible for our ability to recognise faces, and which when damaged or impaired may be the cause of a condition known as face blindness
or prosopagnosia.
The researchers, from Stanford University in California, identified the clusters in the fusiform gyrus — an area on the left side of the brain long associated with face recognition. To do so, they used a painless procedure carried out on a patient with epilepsy who had electrodes temporarily implanted in his brain.
“Our research shows that there is a causal role of specific sites on the fusiform gyrus in the perception of faces. This suggests that impairment to these brain regions may affects people’s ability to perceive faces,” said senior investigator Kalanit Grill-Spector, who co-authored the research paper, published in The Journal of Neuroscience — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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