Hypersexuality following bilateral thalamic infarction: case report

• Autor(a) principal: Mutarelli,Eduardo G.
• Data de Publicação: 2006
• Outros Autores: Omuro,Antonio M.P., Adoni,Tarso
• Tipo de documento: Relatório
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2006000100032
• topic: hypersexuality; disinhibition; behavior; paramedian thalamic infarction; frontal-subcortical circuits

Hypersexuality is a rare but well recognized condition following brain injury. It has been described secondarily to dysfunction in the hypothalamus, the temporal and frontal lobes. We report a 63 year-old man that developed neuropsychological disturbances with hypersexuality as a prominent feature, disinhibition and moderate memory loss, hypersomnia and irritability after a bilateral paramedian thalamic infarction. A SPECT showed frontal hypoperfusion. We believe that these findings are expression of frontal-subcortical circuits dysfunction, particularly the orbitofrontal circuit, secondary to dorso medial thalamic infarction which probably plays a role in the determination of human sexual behavior. This case favors a thalamic modulation of frontal function.