[Neuroanatomical correlates of the amnestic syndrome (author's transl)]

An amnestic syndrome can be observed in several organic brain disorders. This paper tries to elucidate the anatomical substrate of this syndrome by investigation of the brain in 168 carefully examined cases. These included 55 cases of brain tumor, 8 of encephalitis, 55 of Wernicke encephalopathy, and 50 of Alzheimers disease or senile dementia. All these patients had shown a prominent amnestic syndrome. Despite the diversity of the organic brain pathology the anatomical findings in all cases were bilateral lesions of variable intensity in one or more of the following structures: Ammon's horn, fornix, and corpus mammillare. In conformity with the literature it is a assumed that preservation of these structures must be of great significance for the processes of mnemonic registration, integration, and recall. A bilateral lesion in all or some of these centers and their connections causes, as a rule, disturbances of memory. This conclusion, however, does not rule out the possibility that similar memory disturbances may occur following other organic lesions, localized elsewhere in the brain.