Anton’s Blindness
While reading through Dan Dennett’s wonderful Consciousness Explained, I stumbled across a reference to “anosognosia,” which eventually led me to a fantastic disorder called Anton-Babinski syndrome. A person suffering from Anton’s blindness is blind, but insists that they can see. The patient is not only blind, but is unaware that they are blind, and often go to elaborate lengths to convince other people of their sightedness.
The sudden development of bilateral occipital dysfunction is likely to produce transient physical and psychical effects in which mental confusion may be prominent. It may be some days before the relatives, or the nursing staff, tumble to the fact that the patient has actually become sightless. This is not only because the patient ordinarily does not volunteer the information that he has become blind, but he furthermore misleads his entourage by behaving and talking as though he were sighted. Attention is aroused however when the patient is found to collide with pieces of furniture, to fall over objects, and to experience difficulty in finding his way around. He may try to walk through a wall or through a closed door on his way from one room to another. Suspicion is still further alerted when he begins to describe people and objects around him which, as a matter of fact, are not there at all. Thus we have the twin symptoms of anosognosia (or lack of awareness of defect) and confabulation, the latter affecting both speech and behaviour.
- The Divine Banquet of the Brain
Anton’s blindness is a result of brain damage, usually either caused by a head injury or as the result of a stroke.
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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