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Semantic memory deficit with a left thalamic infarct

From the Departments of Neurology (J. Segal) and Radiology (Dr. Kraut), School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; and Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging (Drs. Williams and Hart), Departments of Geriatrics, Neurology, and Radiology, GRECC of the CAVHS, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. John Hart, Jr., Slot 810, Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging, Univ. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 W. Markham St., Little Rock, AR 72205; e-mail: jhart{at}uams.edu

Previous studies of patients with thalamic lesions have reported consistent word finding difficulties without a proposed etiology. The authors describe a patient with a focal left thalamic infarct, pronounced word finding problems, and a relatively selective impairment in semantic memory for object recall from features. The thalamus is proposed to facilitate electrical activity between brain regions that encode object features, resulting in object recall. Thalamic dysfunction disrupting object recall is a plausible etiology for impaired word finding in some patients.

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