Apathy, cognitive dysfunction and impaired social cognition in a patient with bilateral thalamic infarction

We describe the case of a patient with bilateral thalamic lesions due to brain infarcts in the paramedian thalamic artery territories. The patient demonstrated symptoms of apathy (e.g., loss of initiative and interest in others, poor motivation, flattened affect). Neuropsychological assessment 3 and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neurocase 2013-10, Vol.19 (5), p.513-520
Main Authors: Ioannidis, Anestis E., Kimiskidis, Vasilios K., Loukopoulou, Eleni, Geroukis, Triantafyllos, Vlaikidis, Nikolaos, Kosmidis, Mary H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Apathy - physiology
Arteries
Biological and medical sciences
Cerebral Infarction - complications
Cognition Disorders - etiology
Dorsomedial thalamic lesions
Emotion perception
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Neurology
Neuropsychological Tests
Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology
Personality changes
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Sarcasm
Social Perception
Thalamus - blood supply
Thalamus - pathology
Theory of mind
Vascular diseases and vascular malformations of the nervous system
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We describe the case of a patient with bilateral thalamic lesions due to brain infarcts in the paramedian thalamic artery territories. The patient demonstrated symptoms of apathy (e.g., loss of initiative and interest in others, poor motivation, flattened affect). Neuropsychological assessment 3 and 5 years post-infarct revealed severe deficits in verbal and non-verbal immediate and delayed memory, attention, and executive functioning, with minimal improvement over time. Also, he demonstrated difficulties in social cognition (i.e., perception of facial expressions of others and of sarcasm). These findings are discussed and interpreted in light of current theories regarding the neurobiological substrate of apathy.
ISSN:1355-4794
1465-3656
DOI:10.1080/13554794.2012.701645