Psychiatric Disorders of Face Recognition

Reports of cases of patients suffering from an impairment of the brain function of face recognition have appeared in the medical literature since 1923. In some instances the cause is a cerebral accident, others occur in the context of a psychiatric condition. Those face recognition disorders associated with psychiatric diseases are called misidentification syndromes and may be less well known by clinicians. There are several syndromes, all defined by the delusional belief that familiar people or even the patient himself have been replaced by doubles or sosies. The first and most common disorder to have been described is the Capgras delusion named after French Professor Jean-Marie Joseph Capgras who, with his intern Jean ReboulLachaux, first described this “curious little syndrome”1 as he named it (Capgras & ReboulLachaux, 1923).