Brad Pitt is convinced to have a rare disease called “Prosopagnosia”. It is related to the face.
- Prosopagnosia comes from the Greek and associates the word prosopon (face) and agnosis (absence of knowledge).
- The mechanisms involved in the development of prosopagnosia are still poorly understood.
It affects 2.5% of the population including the Hollywood superstar if we are to believe his statement in the American GQ.
Prosopagnosia induces an inability to recognize faces, one’s own and those of others.
“Ashamed not to be able to do it”
In the magazine article, Brad Pitt explains to journalist/novelist who interviews him Ottessa Moshfegh that he has “trouble remembering new people, recognizing their faces, he fears it will give a certain impression of him: that he is distant, inaccessible, egocentric” writes the author.
“But the truth is he wants to remember the people he meets and he’s ashamed he can’t.”
This is not the first time that the actor has spoken on this subject: in 2013, during an interview with the magazine Esquire he had already explained:
“It’s a mystery to me. I can’t hold back a face. So many people hate me because they think I disrespect them.”
Other clues
To recognize others, prosopagnosics can use other cues such as the voice, visual elements such as scars, hair, glasses…
They can describe a face and see if it is female or male, notice the hairstyle, skin or eye colors, but they cannot tell the difference between two close people with the same skin color and hair.
Bilateral lesions
Certain cerebral areas of the posterior cortices are specially devoted to this face recognition/identification function.
When this disorder is present from early childhood, it is called “congenital prosopagnosia”.
It can also appear gradually due to a neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease and is then called “progressive prosopagnosia”.
We speak of “acquired prosopagnosia” when it occurs suddenly following a cerebral lesion of the occipito-temporal regions, or in rarer cases of occipito-temporal lesions on the right side only.
These lesions may be related to a stroke, tumor or head trauma.
