Abstract
A case with amnesia caused by bilateral thalamic infarctions has been reported. A 63-year-old right-handed man suddenly became unconscious, and recovered in a few hours after admission. The lesions seemed to involve the dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus bilaterally on computed tomography. Aphasia and mental deterioration were not found, but the patient showed a severe anterograde and retrograde amnesia (he could not recall some events occurring 15 years ago) and disorientation. Moreover, he was indiffrent to his own amnesia. Immediate recall,appeared to be intact, but free recall and recognition recall became markedly impaired after a distractor activity for 30 seconds. He exhibited a strong primacy and recency effect.
He showed little improvement neuropsychologically. 11 months after the onset, almost the same results were gained as the previous ones in the examinations.
The present case was different from the case with Korsakow' s syndrome in that the patient showed little confabulatory respnse and no frontal dysfunction.
