Left thalamic infarction and disturbance of verbal memory: a clinicoanatomical study with a new method of computed tomographic stereotaxic lesion localization.

A 41-year-old right-handed man developed disturbances of language and memory after a discrete thalamic infarction. Detailed neuropsychological assessment revealed deficits in verbal fluency, word finding, confrontation naming, and anterograde memory for verbal material. High-resolution computed tomography with stereotaxic lesion localization permitted the determination of the thalamic nuclei involved in the infarction. We suggest that the patient's problem in language and verbal memory reflected a defect in memory processing for verbal material during registration, retention, and retrieval, and that this defect probably resulted from a left anterior thalamic lesion affecting the ventrolateral nucleus, centromedian-parafascicular nuclei complex, internal medullary lamina, or mamillothalamic tract.