Man Has Brain Surgery, Then Starts Seeing Cat Features on Human Faces

Résumé détaillé

After brain surgery, a man can now sometimes see cat-like features in human faces, and even human-like features in his own pet cat.

Following brain surgery, a man has been experiencing unusual distortions in his vision which mean he can see catlike features in human faces, and even humanlike features in his pet cat.

Karl, a 28-year-old man who has a condition called prosopometamorphopsia (also known as PMO), began to experience the distortions after a surgery to remove an arteriovenous malformation (a tangle of arteries and veins that form irregular connections) in the right posterior temporal lobe of his brain, which is the region that plays a central role in face perception.

These distortions include facial features in humans changing to become more like a cat's, for example the shape of their eye changing into catlike sockets and their pupils enlarging. Karl can also see different facial shading and texture on human faces, that can look similar to patches of cat fur.

Sometimes, Karl can also see the facial features of someone familiar to him appear on his pet cat's face, such as the person's eye shape and pupil size. He can also sometimes see facial features transfer from human to human as well.

These distortions started two years ago following the surgery, and they can often last for several hours or sometimes all day, making them a "regular part of his life," Brad Duchaine, one of the experts who wrote the report about Karl's case and a professor at Dartmouth College, told Newsweek.

"Our brains store detailed memories of the faces we know well," he said. "In Karl, those stored features get reactivated and stuck in his face perception system, so they’re blended into whatever face he’s looking at, whether it belongs to a person or his cat."

Duchaine said that while Karl wishes these distortions "didn't occur," he has now "learned to tolerate them." However, he noted that for people with PMO, these distortions can make "social interactions unsettling, and many people with it don’t tell anyone because they worry they won’t be believed or people will think they are suffering from broader psychiatric…

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