%0 Journal Article
%@ 1973-8102
%A Dzieciol, AM
%A Bachevalier, J
%A Saleem, KS
%A Gadian, DG
%A Saunders, R
%A Chong, WK
%A Banks, T
%A Mishkin, M
%A Vargha-Khadem, F
%D 2017
%F discovery:1529542
%J Cortex
%K Hippocampus, Hypoxia-ischaemia, Mammillary bodies, Memory, Thalamus
%P 33-44
%T Hippocampal and diencephalic pathology in developmental amnesia.
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1529542/
%V 86
%X Developmental amnesia (DA) is a selective episodic memory disorder associated with hypoxia-induced bilateral hippocampal atrophy of early onset. Despite the systemic impact of hypoxia-ischaemia, the resulting brain damage was previously reported to be largely limited to the hippocampus. However, the thalamus and the mammillary bodies are parts of the hippocampal-diencephalic network and are therefore also at risk of injury following hypoxic-ischaemic events. Here, we report a neuroimaging investigation of diencephalic damage in a group of 18 patients with DA (age range 11-35 years), and an equal number of controls. Importantly, we uncovered a marked degree of atrophy in the mammillary bodies in two thirds of our patients. In addition, as a group, patients had mildly reduced thalamic volumes. The size of the anterior-mid thalamic (AMT) segment was correlated with patients' visual memory performance. Thus, in addition to the hippocampus, the diencephalic structures also appear to play a role in the patients' memory deficit.
%Z © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)