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KMID : 1100220030020020137
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Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
2003 Volume.2 No. 2 p.137 ~ p.143
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Neuropsychological Analysis of Left Anterior Thalamic Infarction
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Kim Jung-Eun
Baek Min-Jae
Han Moon-Ku
Yang Dong-Won
Kim Sang-Yun
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Abstract
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Background: Anterior thalamic lesion is known to produce various cognitive impairments. However, these findings are mainly based on case studies rather than group studies. We analyzed the clinical & neuropsychological characteristics of the patients with the left anterior thalamic infarction to investigate the patterns of memory impairment and other cognitive dysfunctions of the patients.
Methods: We selected 7 patients with acute left anterior thalamic infarction who had been admitted to two referral hospitals. All patients underwent MRI, a careful medical history, physical and neurologic examination, and detailed neuropsychological tests within a week after stroke. Their lesions were confirmed to be located in the anterior nucleus lesion of left thalamus by lesion analysis of brain MRI.
Results: All patients showed severe verbal and visual anterograde amnesia and also anomic aphasia and frontal executive dysfunction. The characteristics of the amnesia in these patients were that they showed encoding deficits as well as retrieval deficits. Five patients also had visuospatial dysfunction.
Conclusion: Retrieval deficit in memory impairment and executive dysfunctions are suggestive of the functional involvement of the frontal lobe. Multiple cognitive deficits including anomia and visuospatial dysfunction other than memory disturbance also suggest that the anterior nucleus of left thalamus had multiple connections with diffuse fronto-temporo-parietal areas, although the exact circuit or mechanism explaining the pathophysiologic relations between the anterior nucleus of left thalamus and the multiple cortical areas has not been elucidated.
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KEYWORD
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Left anterior thalamus, Memory impairment, Frontal executive dysfunction, Visuospatial dysfunction, Language dysfunction
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