One of the biggest downsides of becoming ill with COVID-19 is the inability to be around friends or family during quarantining. But could the virus make it difficult to recognize loved ones at all?
A recent study in the journal Cortex suggests it’s possible. Researchers from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, reported the first instance of prosopagnosia (otherwise known as “face blindness”) as a symptom after COVID-19 infection.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke defines prosopagnosia as “a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces.”
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The condition is caused by “congenital influence, damage or impairment in a fold in the brain that appears to coordinate the neural systems controlling facial perception and memory,” the website says.
The study focused on a 28-year-old woman named Annie, who contracted COVID in March 2020. Prior to that, Annie had no trouble recognizing faces — but two months after getting the virus, she struggled to identify even her closest family members.
In one example, Annie reported that she was unable to recognize her father’s face when she passed him at a restaurant, saying it was as if “my dad’s voice came out of a stranger’s face.”
She told the researchers she now relies on people’s voices as a means of identification.
During tests, Annie was able to identify objects and scenes, but failed to identify familiar faces.
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She also reported deficits in her navigational abilities, as she now struggles to find her way through a grocery store, locate her parked car without help or remember directions to frequently visited locations. (The researchers cited navigational difficulty as a common symptom among prosopagnosia patients.)
H/T Fox News (read more at FoxNews.com)
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