[Oculocephalomotor disorders and bilateral thalamo-subthalamic infarction (author's transl)]

A 33-year-old woman on oral contraceptives suddenly developed neurological disorders characterised by decreased alertness, absence of motor and verbal spontaneity, anterograde amnesia with difficulties in verbal and visual learning. She also presented paralysis of upwards and downwards ocular movements affecting mainly saccadic movements while convergence was normal. An initial almost total absence of spontaneous head movements and later an impossibility to carry out downwards movements of the head. This apparently represents a syndrome still not reported in human pathology. The clinical course was favourable. CT scan suggested the presence of a paramedian infarct of the region supplied by the thalamosubthalamic artery of the type II b of Percheron. An analogy is suggested between these disorders of oculocephalomotor behaviour and those observed by Denny-Brown in experimental bilateral retrorubric lesions. The possibility of a lesion in the internal thalamic nucleis and the adjacent subthalamic region is considered.