Transient global amnesia in childhood.

Transient global amnesia, a brief disorder of recent memory affecting middle-aged and elderly patients, is probably caused by transient ischaemia of the hippocampal regions and other parts of the limbic system related to memory functions. A 13-year-old boy with a single episode of transient global amnesia and a three-year history of recurrent headache is described. It is suggested that some acute confusional states encountered in children with migraine may represent obscured instances of transient global amnesia, and that a brief vasoconstriction of the arteries supplying hippocampal structures is probably responsible for both conditions.