Anatomical Variations in the Posterior Circle of Willis and Vascular Pathologies in Isolated Unilateral Thalamic Infarction.

Background And Purpose: To characterize relations between configurations of the posterior part of the Circle of Willis (CoW) and the occurrence of unilateral thalamic infarction.

Methods: From a magnetic resonance imaging report database, we identified and analyzed 111 patients with acute isolated unilateral thalamic infarction on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Vascular pathologies were noted on magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) and the diameter of the posterior communicating artery (PComA) and the P1 and P2 segments of the posterior cerebral artery determined.

Crossed cerebellar diaschisis in acute isolated thalamic infarction detected by dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MRI.

Purpose: Crossed cerebellar diaschisis (CCD) is a state of neural depression caused by loss of connections to injured neural structures remote from the cerebellum usually evaluated by positron emission tomography. Recently it has been shown that dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion weighted MRI (PWI) may also be feasible to detect the phenomenon. In this study we aimed to assess the frequency of CCD on PWI in patients with acute thalamic infarction.