The amnesic syndrome is analysed in 6 infarctions restricted to the thalamic area. Bilateral lesions were linked to more definite deficits; the anterograde forgetting was unequivocal at the initial stage and affected both verbal and visual memory. In unilateral lesions, deficits were far more discrete and there was no evidence enough for assuming a strict hemispheric specialisation, left for verbal memory, and right for visual memory. These cases and others from the literature suggested that amnesia is more important and pure in infarctions of the anterior part of the thalamus.