What would be your thought if you walk down a street, and you see people with drooping faces going about their usual activity. First you might wonder if they are aliens, but in reality they aren't. These people cannot just control their facial expression and as such suffering from a facial processing condition known as Prosopometamorphopsia (PMO).
This disorder affects humans and they cause facial expression to appear distorted where patients mouth appear too wide, or too stretched, or in cases were their nose appear twisted, or in some cases, drooping eyes. This condition is extremely rare with just about 80 cases being recorded in research literature. This doesn't mean that there are just 80 people with the condition, there is also a possibility that it could be under reported.
With this condition, most of the time, the distortion affect faces only and not other body parts or objects. In some case, the patient see other people's faces as distorted, other will see their own faces distorted, and for a few, they can see both. This distortion can affect the half side of people faces while some can see it in all faces.
The symptoms of seeing distorted faces can last from hours to years and patients who see this start to think that they are developing some kind of mental illness which then leads them to begin to isolate themselves from the general public even when what they are seeing isn't real to a reasonable extent but the facial distortion freaks them out that they try to avoid looking at people.
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Talking about being under reported as a case, when people go to the hospital, they are usually misdiagnosed with mental conditions like schiozophrenia instead of diagnosing them with a visual system disorder. People with this condition, about 75% of them suffer this disorder as a result of brain damage especially in the back of the brain where a lot of visual processing takes place. The damage can also occur in the Corpus Callosum which connects the right and the left side of the brain together.
People who suffer from PMO see distorted faces but can still identify the faces of people they see. This condition has made it clear that there are a lot of brain part that contribute to facial feature. Some patient with damage to their corpus Callusum see distortion on the right side of faces and scientist come to a conclusion that the right processing is late when the frame of reference for left and right is the meaningful thing.
When next you see someone who tells you that they are seeing distorted faces which could look demonic, do not cancel them as being mentally ill, or spiritually possessed as Nigerians might see it. Just go to the nearest hospital and see a doctor, it might be a case of prosopometamorphopsia (PMO) and although it is rare, scientist are willing to work with people who have this condition so as to come up with a solution for the condition.
Reference
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945221000836?via%3Dihub#bib28
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393221003067
https://lab.faceblind.org/papers/almeida_20_Curr_Biol.pdf
https://lab.faceblind.org/papers/herald23_pmoreview.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brad-Duchaine
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1038350
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736
