Abulia from unilateral capsular genu infarction: report of two cases

We report two cases of capsular genu infarction in patients showing pure abulia without motor weakness. One case is left-sided infarction, and another is right-sided. Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) examination in both disclosed hypoperfusion in the ipsilateral frontal cortex at the infarction. In one case, reversion of frontal hypoperfusion was observed later. We considered that the frontal hypoperfusion was due to trans-synaptic hypofunction of thalamo-frontal projections from the deep-seated capsular genu lesion and that it resulted in the pure abulia without neurological deficits.