Central Dazzle

A patient who experienced painless intolerance to light (dazzle) three months after a right posterior cerebral artery occlusion was shown by computerized tomography to have right occipital and right thalamic infarctions. His symptoms improved with amitriptyline hydrochloride and perphenazine therapy. The sensitivity to light, delayed onset, response to therapy, and presence of a thalamic lesion are analogous to the thalamic pain syndrome and suggest that central dazzle is a variant of the thalamic syndrome.