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Anton-Babinski syndrome, more frequently known as Anton’s blindness, is a rare symptom of brain damage occurring in the occipital lobe. People who suffer from it are “cortically blind,” but affirm, often quite adamantly and in the face of clear evidence of their blindness, that they are capable of seeing. Failure to see is dismissed by the sufferer through confabulation. It is mostly seen following a stroke, but may also be seen after head injury.
This condition is named after Gabriel Anton and Joseph Babinski. It is well described by the neurologist Macdonald Critchley:
The syndrome may be conceptualised ideally as the converse of blindsight: a syndrome in which part of the visual field is experienced as completely inoperative, but some reliable perception does in fact occur.
Anton-Babinski syndrome was featured in two episodes of the House, M.D. TV series, titled “Euphoria, Part 1” and “Euphoria, Part 2”, although it was ascribed to primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, a disease that does not cause the syndrome in real life.
The syndrome is also featured prominently in the Rupert Thomson novel The Insult.
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