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.

A case study is reported on large ischemic infracts involving cortical and subcortical areas of the parietal lobes bilaterally, especially left temporo-parietal and right parietal. On examination, the diagnosis of vascular dementia with color anomia, optic aphasia for colors, was established. The patient (FN) showed great difficulty in understanding a scene as a whole and in describing complex scenes. FN's oral comprehension skills at word and sentence level were satisfactory and he exhibited communicative effectiveness during conversation. He could read letter by letter, but could not make simple judgments of shapes. FN exhibited a marked inability to name colors presented to him visually and to indicate or point to the color requested from the examiner. The most interesting of all the patient's characteristics was the strategy--a football-team color-code--he had developed for compensating for his inability to name colors.

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