Language disturbances from mesencephalo-thalamic infarcts

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Abstract
The authors report the cases of two patients with CT-documented paramedian mesencephalo-thalamic infarcts, showing language disturbances. The first patient showed a non fluent, transcortical motor-like language disorder. The CT study disclosed that it was the dorso-median thalamic nucleus that was mostly involved in both cases. These findings agree with a few previous pathological studies suggesting that the paramedian thalamic nuclei, particularly the dorso-median nucleus may play some role in language disturbances. However the anatomical basis for thalamic aphasia remains speculative, taking into account the importance of cortical connections in the origin of subcortical neuropsychological disturbances.