Face and face pareidolia in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy indicates different neural processing: an event-related potential study

Visual perception of face images or face pareidolia can be evaluated with event-related potentials (ERP) for healthy subjects and patients with neurological conditions. In this study, we aimed to analyse event-related potential components such as P100, N100, N170, and vertex-positive potential (VPP) in response to face pareidolia perception in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients.

ERPs were recorded during the pareidolia test. Waveforms were analzyed and current source density (CSD) maps were generated.

CSD profiles were shown to be interpretable when face and face pareidolia conditions. N100, P100, and N170 components showed larger amplitudes and longer latency in epilepsy patients in response to face pareidolia stimuli compared to real face images. However, the N170 component latency did not differ significantly between epilepsy patients and healthy participants, while the larger amplitude and longer latency of N100 and P100 responses were evoked in healthy patients.

Our results indicate a difference in the neural mechanisms of processing real face information and pareidolia face-like information in TLE patients.