Aortic dissection presenting with transient global amnesia-like symptoms

Diagnostic criteria of transient global amnesia (TGA) are witnessed attacks, clear-cut anterograde amnesia during the attack, absent clouding of consciousness and loss of personal identity, no accompanying focal neurologic symptoms or epileptic features, resolution of attacks within 24 hours, and no recent head injury or active epilepsy.1 For the etiology of TGA, four main hypotheses have been considered: TIA, epilepsy, migraine, and transient venous ischemia.1–3⇓⇓ None of these hypotheses fully explains the mechanism of this episodic disease, but the accepted neuroanatomic correlate of TGA is the mediobasal temporal lobe and hippocampus. We present two patients with aortic dissection who provide evidence for an ischemic pathogenesis in TGA. ### Patient 1. A 47-year-old man was found confused and disoriented. On examination at admission, he asked repetitive questions and was alert but completely disoriented to time and place and only partially oriented to person. The cranial nerve examination showed only a slight anisocoria. The …