Chronic Cognitive Impairment Following Laterothalamic Infarcts

Abstract

Our observations show that while learning, naming, and gnosic difficulties fit with the classical verbal/nonverbal dichotomy (left and right hemisphere, respectively), executive dysfunctions, including verbal fluency tasks, were more dominant after right thalamic infarcts. Although the observed deficits appeared to be less severe than those generally found with dorsomedial and polar thalamic strokes, the dominance of executive dysfunction suggests that ventrolateral thalamic lesions may disrupt frontothalamic subcortical loops.

Cognitive Disorders in Acute Stroke: Prevalence and Clinical Determinants

“…Whereas a substantial number of studies has reported hemispheric functional asymmetry at the subcortical level in later stages of stroke [e.g. [39, 40]], we could not demonstrate this difference early after stroke, perhaps in part due to a lack of statistical power.…”

Cognitive Disorders in Acute Stroke: Prevalence and Clinical Determinants

“…Whereas a substantial number of studies has reported hemispheric functional asymmetry at the subcortical level in later stages of stroke [e.g. [39, 40]], we could not demonstrate this difference early after stroke, perhaps in part due to a lack of statistical power.…”

Differential progression of brain atrophy in Parkinson's disease with and without visual hallucinations

“…On the other hand, delayed recall was related to grey-matter atrophy in the prefrontal cortex, showing that both encoding and retrieval deficits are responsible for memory dysfunction in PD. The decline in semantic fluency showed a correlation with progressive thalamic atrophy, which is in agreement with the fact that vascular lesions in the thalamus impair verbal fluency 39. Finally, language comprehension also showed a great decline over time and was related to the progressive atrophy of medial temporal structures, specifically, the amygdala.…”

Anteromedian, Central, and Posterolateral Infarcts of the Thalamus

“…The stroke mechanisms and main clinical features of these infarcts corresponded to patterns described previously, [3][4][5][6]9,16,17 except for paramedian infarcts. After lesions in this territory, memory impairment in our study was less frequent than reported previously.…”

“…Executive dysfunction was found after left posterolateral lesion, which emphasizes the importance of thalamocortical projections from posterolateral nuclei of thalamus. 17 On the contrary, with what is described after inferolateral infarcts, 17 we found executive dysfunction to be more frequent after left lesion than right lesion. Further assessment of patients with inferolateral, posterolateral, and posterior lesions are needed to determine a possible lateralization of executive functions.…”

Cognitive Disorders in Acute Stroke: Prevalence and Clinical Determinants

“…Whereas a substantial number of studies has reported hemispheric functional asymmetry at the subcortical level in later stages of stroke [e.g. [39, 40]], we could not demonstrate this difference early after stroke, perhaps in part due to a lack of statistical power.…”

Differential progression of brain atrophy in Parkinson's disease with and without visual hallucinations

“…On the other hand, delayed recall was related to grey-matter atrophy in the prefrontal cortex, showing that both encoding and retrieval deficits are responsible for memory dysfunction in PD. The decline in semantic fluency showed a correlation with progressive thalamic atrophy, which is in agreement with the fact that vascular lesions in the thalamus impair verbal fluency 39. Finally, language comprehension also showed a great decline over time and was related to the progressive atrophy of medial temporal structures, specifically, the amygdala.…”

Anteromedian, Central, and Posterolateral Infarcts of the Thalamus

“…The stroke mechanisms and main clinical features of these infarcts corresponded to patterns described previously, [3][4][5][6]9,16,17 except for paramedian infarcts. After lesions in this territory, memory impairment in our study was less frequent than reported previously.…”

“…Executive dysfunction was found after left posterolateral lesion, which emphasizes the importance of thalamocortical projections from posterolateral nuclei of thalamus. 17 On the contrary, with what is described after inferolateral infarcts, 17 we found executive dysfunction to be more frequent after left lesion than right lesion. Further assessment of patients with inferolateral, posterolateral, and posterior lesions are needed to determine a possible lateralization of executive functions.…”

Cognitive Disorders in Acute Stroke: Prevalence and Clinical Determinants

“…Whereas a substantial number of studies has reported hemispheric functional asymmetry at the subcortical level in later stages of stroke [e.g. [39, 40]], we could not demonstrate this difference early after stroke, perhaps in part due to a lack of statistical power.…”

Differential progression of brain atrophy in Parkinson's disease with and without visual hallucinations

“…On the other hand, delayed recall was related to grey-matter atrophy in the prefrontal cortex, showing that both encoding and retrieval deficits are responsible for memory dysfunction in PD. The decline in semantic fluency showed a correlation with progressive thalamic atrophy, which is in agreement with the fact that vascular lesions in the thalamus impair verbal fluency 39. Finally, language comprehension also showed a great decline over time and was related to the progressive atrophy of medial temporal structures, specifically, the amygdala.…”

Anteromedian, Central, and Posterolateral Infarcts of the Thalamus

“…The stroke mechanisms and main clinical features of these infarcts corresponded to patterns described previously, [3][4][5][6]9,16,17 except for paramedian infarcts. After lesions in this territory, memory impairment in our study was less frequent than reported previously.…”

“…Executive dysfunction was found after left posterolateral lesion, which emphasizes the importance of thalamocortical projections from posterolateral nuclei of thalamus. 17 On the contrary, with what is described after inferolateral infarcts, 17 we found executive dysfunction to be more frequent after left lesion than right lesion. Further assessment of patients with inferolateral, posterolateral, and posterior lesions are needed to determine a possible lateralization of executive functions.…”