DIENCEPHALIC TEMPORAL-ORDER AMNESIA

Objective-Amnesia for temporal relations may occur without amnesia for content memories. The aim was to determine whether a patient with mil d memory loss due to a thalamic lesion had amnesia for temporal relati ons, and whether the amnesia was specific for particular material. Met hods-A male patient had an isolated right dorsomedial thalamic infarct and resolving amnesia. He was tested on tasks relating to content (wh at) and temporal (when) memories for both verbal and non-verbal materi al, three and seven months after his infarct. Results-Three months aft er his infarct, the man had amnesia for temporal, but not content memo ries using non-verbal stimuli, and normal performance using verbal sti muli. Seven months after his infarct, he had a normal performance usin g verbal and non-verbal stimuli. Conclusions-Patients with thalamic le sions may have a material specific amnesia for temporal relations in t he absence of amnesia for content.