[Reduplication of an event after right caudate nucleus haemorrhage].

BACKGROUND

Environmental reduplication which is characterized by reduplication of places has been reported in right hemispheric lesions, particularly but not only in the right frontal region. However, spatial delirium may follow right sub-cortical lesions.

METHODS

We describe a 53 years-old man who had a reduplicative paramnesia for event alone after an intracerebral haematoma of the right caudate nucleus.

RESULTS

MRI Scan showed also an extension of the right caudate nucleus haemorrhage into the ventricular system. Regional cerebral blood flow studied with 99Tcm-HMPAO showed a decrease of perfusion in the right dorso-lateral frontal cortex. To our knowledge, we reported the first case of reduplicative paramnesia of event associated with a right caudate nucleus injury. Similar right frontal deactivation was observed in two cases of reduplicative paramnesia for place, one of them after an infarction of the retro-lenticular portion of the right internal capsulae, the other after a right thalamo-capsular haemorrhage.

CONCLUSION

We suggest that reduplicative paramnesia for event, like the previous cases reported of reduplicative paramnesia for place, may be linked to a subcortical lesion of the frontal lobe inducing a right functional frontal deactivation.