[Cerebral blood flow deficit and thalamic infarcts. Topographic and neuropsychological confrontations]

Cerebral blood flow (C.B.F.) measurements with continuous xenon 133 inhalation and single photon emission tomography were performed in 11 patients with uni- or bilateral thalamic infarctions. Anterior infarction was associated with changes in parietal and anterior frontal C.B.F., thalamo-subthalamic infarctions with a more diffuse and definite reduction of C.B.F., thalamo-geniculate and superior juxta-thalamic lesions to a reduction of temporal and parietal C.B.F. A relative anatomo-functional concordance was found between the localization of the infarction and the cortical and deep situation of the C.B.F. reduction. Relations between the site of this reduction and the quality and degree of neuropsychological involvement were less clear. A verbal activation was realized in a patient with thalamo-subthalamic infarction which failed to evoke the C.B.F. elevation observed in normal subjects.