Although we usually talk about the sensory channels that help us to know our environment by referring to the “five senses”, the truth is that there are actually more.

Touch, for example, is related to our ability to perceive pain and temperature changes. But there is still another “sense” that we tend to ignore, and whose importance is revealed in those cases where a neurological disorder makes it disappear. This biological alteration is known as autotopagnosia , and the capacity it suppresses is the ability to know in each moment which parts of the space are being occupied by the parts of the body.

What is autotopagnosia?

Etymologically, the term autotopagnosia already gives clues to its meaning: it is a type of agnosia, like prosopagnosia or visual agnosia, in which the disability has to do with the possibility of knowing in which positions the parts of one’s body or those of another person or entity are located.

Thus, this neurological disorder, which is also sometimes called somatotopagnosia, expresses itself in serious problems when it comes to knowing the orientation and placement of parts of the body or, being the product of an organic lesion in certain parts of the brain.

Causes of autotopagnosia

Usually, autotopagnosia appears associated with lesions in the parietal lobe of the left cerebral hemisphere. However, it is not easy to know its causes in detail.

As in almost all neurological disorders, it is very difficult to locate an isolated cause for the appearance of the symptoms, because the nervous system (and especially the human nervous system) is tremendously complex, both structurally and in terms of its functioning.

In addition, cases in which autotopagnosia appears are rare, which makes it difficult to study. However, possible explanations for how this alteration appears have been proposed n.

There are three main hypotheses about what may be the causes of this disorder. The first of these conceives autotopagnosia as a product of an injury to the language related areas of the left posterior hemisphere (it could simply be a type of anomie, which is characterized by the impossibility of referring to elements by the name that serves to designate them); the second understands this failure as an alteration in certain parts of the parietal lobe that intervene in imagining a three-dimensional model of the body; and the third characterizes it as a visuospatial problem also related to the parietal lobe.

The possibility of analyzing in depth the causes of autotopagnosia is made difficult by the fact that e often occurs in conjunction with other neurological disorders such as apraxia.

Symptoms of this neurological disorder

People with autotopagia have serious difficulties in locating body parts of themselves , another person or a drawn character. In addition, they often show symptoms of two types:

1. Semantic errors

These types of symptoms correspond to cases in which, when asked to point to a body part, they point to another part that belongs to a similar semantic category . For example, when instead of pointing to an arm they point to a leg, or when instead of pointing to a knee they point to an elbow.

2. Contiguity errors

This symptom has to do with the person’s inability to know exactly where a body part is. For example, when asked to point at the chest, points at the belly , or when asked to point at the ear, points in the direction of the neck.

It is also necessary to point out that not all cases of autotopagnosia are the same, and while some people are unable to know where their own or other body parts are, others may have trouble locating their own, or may be able to tell by touching their own body area where it is and what it is, for example.

Treatment of somatotopagnosia

As it is a neurological disorder caused by injuries, it is considered that the symptoms cannot completely disappear and that the marks left in the brain by the injury are irreversible . However, it is possible to work on mitigating the symptoms of the disease by teaching the person to adopt habits that make day-to-day life easier.

Unfortunately, there are no known pharmacological treatments that have shown efficacy in these cases either, so it is necessary to attend to each case in a specially personalized manner in order to know all the problems that patients face and the possible opportunities they are exposed to when it comes to making progress in their way of acting.

Concluding

Autotopagnosia is a neurological disorder that is difficult to understand because its nature is not yet understood: it could be a language failure (i.e., problems in calling things by their name) or visuospatial (i.e., related to not knowing where that part of the body is that you already know its name).

More research is needed to develop more effective intervention programmes.