Transient mutism resolving into cerebellar speech after brain stem infarction following a traumatic injury of the vertebral artery in a child

A 3.7-year-old girl presented with an anterior neck injury followed by progressive subcutaneous emphysema and loss of consciousness. After resuscitation, a laceration on the first tracheal cartilage was closed surgically. As she was extubated one week later, she was found to have right hemiplegia and muteness. MRI showed a T2-bright lesion on the tegmentum of the left midbrain down to the upper pons. Right vertebral angiography disclosed an intimal flap with stenosis at the C3 vertebral level presumably caused by a fracture of the right C3 transverse process later confirmed in a cervical 3D-CT scan. Her muteness lasted for 10 days, after which she began to utter some comprehensible words in a dysarthric fashion. Her neurological deficits showed improvement within 3 months of her admission. Transient mutism after brain stem infarction has not been reported previously. We discuss the anatomical bases for this unusual reversible disorder in the light of previous observations and conclude that bilateral damage to the dentatothalamocortical fibers at the decussation of the superior cerebellar peduncle may have been responsible for her transient mutism.