A case report published on March 24, 2024 in The Lancet is helping researchers gain new insights into a poorly understood neurological disorder. The case is that of Victor Sharrah, a 58-year-old man who complained about seeing “demonic” faces for nearly three years. Everything else he views appears normal.
What makes Sharrah’s case special is that faces in photographs or on a computer screen remain normal — he only sees the demonic features when looking at a real face.
In his own words, “Every face I see that’s not on a screen looks evil, twisted and demented.”
There is a real disorder that causes people to see faces as demonic appearances. This haunting condition is called prosopometamorphopsia (PMO) and Sharrah’s case provided investigators, a team at Dartmouth led by Brad Duchaine, a unique opportunity to see the world through a PMO patient’s eyes for the first time.
