Abstract
A 58-year old patient presented with episodes of transient achromatopsia. Apparently, alteration in color vision occurred either in isolation or following a temporary complete loss of vision. This phenomenon supports the view of the functional partitioning of the visual association cortex. It also suggests that certain aspects of visual processing may take place in parallel.
Isolated transient central achromatopsia has very rarely been described. In our patient, it was identified after a careful history taking. When clinicians will be more aware of this semiological entity, the phenomenon will be more readily recognized and will serve to draw attention to the possibility of transient changes in cortical function.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bailey, P. and von Bonin, G. The Isocortex in Man. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois (1951).
Bender, B. G. and Ruddock, K. H. The characteristics of a visual defect associated with abnormal responses to both colour and luminance. Vision Res. 14: 383–393 (1974).
Birch, J. Acquired color defects of central origin. In: Congenital and Acquired Color Vision Defects (Pokorny, J., Smith, V. C., Verriest, G. and Pinckers, A. J. L. G., eds.) pp. 318–321 Grune and Stratton, New York (1979).
Bonin, G. von and Bailey, P. The Neocortex of Macaca Mulatta. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois (1947).
Critchley, M. Acquired anomalies of colour perception of central origin. Brain 88: 711–724 (1965).
Damasio, A. R. Central achromatopsia (Letter). Reply from the author. Neurology 31: 920–921 (1981).
Damasio, A., Yamada, T., Damasio, H., Corbett, J. and McKee, J. Central achromatopsia: behavioral, anatomic and physiologic aspects. Neurology 30: 1064–1071 (1980).
Green, G. J. and Lessel, S. Acquired cerebral dyschromatopsia. Arch. Ophthalmol. 95: 121–128 (1977).
Hoyt, W. F. Transient bilatreral blurring of vision Arch. Ophthalmol. 70: 746–751 (1963).
King-Smith, P. E., Kranda, K. and Wood, I. C. J. An acquired color defect of the opponent color system. Invest. Ophthalmol. 15: 584–587 (1976).
Knox, D. L. and Cogan, D. G. Eye pain and homomymous hemianopsia. Am. J. Ophthalmol. 54: 1091–1093 (1962).
Lapresle, J., Metrau, R. and Annabi, A. Transient achromatopsia in vertebrobasilar insufficiency. J. Neurol. 215: 155–158 (1977).
Lhermitte, F., Chain, F., Aron, D., Leblanc, M. and Souty, O. Les troubles de la vision des couleurs dans les lésions postérieres du cerveau. Rev. Neurol. 121: 6–29 (1969).
Meadows, J. C. Disturbed perception of colours associated with localized cerebral lesions. Brain 97: 615–632 (1974a).
Meadows, J. C. The anatomical basis of prosopagnosia. J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry 37: 489–501 (1974b).
Pearlman, A. L., Birch, J. and Meadows, J. C. Cerebral color blindness: an acquired defect in hue discrimination. Ann. Neurol. 5: 253–261 (1979).
Pöpper, E.., Brinkman, R., Cramon, D. von and Singer, W. Association and dissociation of visual functions in a case of bilateral occipital lobe infarction. Arch. Psychiat. Nervenkr. 225: 1–21 (1978).
Zeki, S. The representation of colours in the cerebral cortex. Nature 284: 412–418 (1980).
Zeki, S. The distribution of wavelength and orientation selective cells in different areas of monkey visual cortex. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B217: 449–470 (1983).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1984 Dr W. Junk Publishers The Hague, Boston, Lancaster
About this paper
Cite this paper
Safran, A.B., Felgenhauer, W.R., Roth, A. (1984). Transient Cerebral Achromatopsia. In: Verriest, G. (eds) Colour Vision Deficiencies VII. Documenta Ophthalmologica Proceedings Series, vol 39. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6551-5_56
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6551-5_56
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-009-6553-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-6551-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive