[Amnesia in thalamic infarction]

Restricted thalamic infarctions are in man a useful model for investigating the consequences of limited diencephalic lesions on memory and verbal or visual learning. Two new cases of amnesia with thalamo-sub-thalamic infarctions are presented, with a general review of the problem. The gathering of the different cases according to the vascular thalamic territories and, as a consequence, to nuclear or associative structures concerned, allows a better approach of the relations between amnesia and infarctions. Uni or bilateral anterior lesions are the cause of more important and pure memory deficits, posterior infarctions are more often associated to language involvement or spatial cognitive problems which interfere with memorizing.