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Health

People with face blindness are missing a ‘hub’ in their brains

By Helen Thomson

2 November 2017

person with unrecognisable face

Hard to recognise

Tuan Tran/Getty

Do you find it difficult to spot a face in the crowd? Now we know why: people with face blindness seem to have a missing “hub” of brain connections. The discovery could be used to diagnose children with the condition, and teach them new ways to identify faces.

People with prosopagnosia, which often runs in families, cannot easily tell faces apart. This can have a significant impact on people’s lives. People with the condition rely heavily on voice recognition, clothes, hairstyle and gait to identify people, but can still fail to recognise family and…

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