asomatognosia

Asomatognosia (or somatoagnosia) is a neurological disorder characterized as loss of recognition or awareness of part of the body. The failure to acknowledge, for example, a limb, may be expressed verbally or as a pattern of neglect. The limb may also be attributed to another person, a delusion known as somatoparaphrenia. However, they can be shown their limb and this error is temporarily corrected. Some authors have focused on the prevalence of hemispatial neglect in such patients.

Asomatognosia is the inability to feel, recognize, or be conscious of one's own specific body parts or bodily conditions (Whishaw, 2015). Generally, asomatognosia often arises from damage to the right parietal lobe (Whishaw, 2015). Evidence indicates that damage to the right hemisphere often results from a stroke or pre-existing hemispatial neglect, or inattention to the left visual field (Antoniello, 2016) (Keenan, 2004). Individuals who suffer from somatoparaphrenia, a specific form of asomatognosia, ignore or deny ownership of a body part contralateral to the brain lesion (Feinberg, 1990). Although this condition can affect one or both sides of the body, most patients exhibit the inability to recognize limbs/body parts (i.e., arm, leg, head, breast) on the left side of their body as their own (Keenan, 2004). While individuals with asomatognosia typically suffer large lesions across several temporoparietal sectors, those with somatoparaphrenia also suffer lesions in the right medial and orbitofrontal regions of the brain (Feinberg 2010).