Anton syndrome

The Anton's syndrome is a rare neurological syndrome . It describes the visual anosognosia (lack of insight into the disease) of one's own ( cortical ) blindness after damage to the visual pathway in both halves of the brain . The Anton syndrome goes back to the Austrian neurologist Gabriel Anton (1858–1933).

The Anton syndrome should not be confused with the Anton Babinski syndrome , which describes a unilateral asomatognosia .

Symptoms

Those affected do not notice their blindness and act as if nothing had happened. They often vehemently deny the question whether their vision has gotten worse. If you hold things in front of them, they describe these supposedly recognized objects as vividly as they are wrong ( confabulation ).

Anatomical

The brain damage that is typical for Anton syndrome is a cerebral infarction of the visual cortex of both halves of the brain. The visual cortex is supplied with blood via the brain stem artery from which the two posterior brain arteries arise. Rarely, however, Anton syndrome can develop after damage to the anterior visual pathway , such as the eyes.

A anosognosia can also for unusual parts of the visual field occur, the victims do not notice the outage. It is not uncommon, for example, that blindness in the entire left half of the field of vision is only noticeable when the person concerned walks heaped against the left door frame.

Historical

The first case described by Gabriel Anton is that of a woman Ursula M. who did not recognize her complete cortical blindness. A discreet word-finding disorder, however, bothered her very much, which is why she complained about it very much.

As early as 1885, a case by von Monakow was known who had suffered cortical blindness. He had not recognized his complete loss of vision and acted as if he could see. However, he recognized his general frailty and made allusions to it. Examination of his brain after his death showed that he had suffered damage to his visual cortex in both hemispheres.

See also

• Anosognosia
• Anton Babinski Syndrome
• Cortical blindness
• Charles Bonnet Syndrome
• Prosopagnosia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Gabriel Anton (1898): About the self-perception of herder diseases of the brain by the patient with cortical blindness and cortical deafness , Arch Psychiat Nervenkr 32 : pp. 86–127
2. ^ A. Schnider (1997): Behavioral neurology , Georg Thieme Verlag, ISBN 3-13-109782-5
3. ^ M. Trepel (1995): Neuroanatomie , Urban & Schwarzenberg, ISBN 3-541-13431-3
4. ↑ Gabriel Anton (1896): Blindness after bilateral brain disease with loss of orientation in space , Mittheilungen des Verein der Ärzte in der Steiermark 33 : p. 41-46
5. ↑ A. von Monakow (1885): Experimental and pathological-anatomical studies on the relationship between the so-called sphere of vision and the infracortical optic centers and the optic nerve , Arch Psychiatr 16 : p. 151-199
6. ↑ Hans-Otto Karnath and P. Thier (2003): Neuropsychologie , Springer, ISBN 3-540-67359-8

This article is about a health issue. It is not used for self-diagnosis and does not replace a diagnosis by a doctor. Please note the information on health issues !