He sees faces with terrifying demonic deformities: the man thinks he has gone mad, but in fact he is suffering from a rare disease.

Seeing people's faces with devilish features is a particularly disturbing symptom experienced by Victor Chara, a 58-year-old American. He describes frightening deformities. Pointy ears, elongated features, and a Joker-like clipped smile… he thought he was going crazy! Scientists have researched this extremely rare disease by subjecting it to a whole battery of tests. The man suffers from An extremely rare visual disorderHe explains that this technique is called prosopometamorphopsia (PMO), which distorts faces without preventing recognition the world.

“A 58-year-old man, who had been seeing people's faces distorted for 31 months and, in his words, looking 'satanic', came to our laboratory for evaluation.” The study published by American neurologists and psychologists from Darmouth College in Hanover (New Hampshire) was reported in The scalpel. Describes this man “Facial features are very elongated, with deep furrows on the forehead, cheeks and chin.”a A visual feature that only applies to humans– The vision of objects, such as houses or cars, is not affected. “The patient said that although the faces were distorted, he was still able to recognize their identities. Notably, he reported no distortions when viewing images of the face on a screen or on paper. The distortions were not accompanied by delusional beliefs about identity.” People he has met, such as his family or friendscontinue studying.

The man has an extensive medical history: bipolar disorder, PTSD, head trauma. He also suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. His strange visual disturbances appeared four months later. Examinations revealed no eye problems. On the other hand, MRI shows a A lesion of the hippocampus in the left half of the brain, details of our colleagues, which leads to his conversion. The diagnosis was made: This man suffers from myopia.

The causes of prosopometamorphosis are varied. This disorder can occur in the context of head trauma, cerebral infarction, epilepsy, migraine, or even persistent hallucinations. Cases are extremely rare but several have already been recorded.