The NVCL-20 is the first instrument that includes items addressing spontaneous confabulation. Administration is reliable, valid and feasible in clinical practice, making it a useful addition to existing confabulating measures.

Aims:  Confabulation behavior is common in patients with Korsakoff's syndrome. A distinction can be made between spontaneous and provoked confabulations, which may have different underlying cognitive mechanisms. Provoked confabulations may be related to intrusions on memory tests, whereas spontaneous confabulations may be due to executive dysfunction or a source memory deficit. Methods:  In 19 chronic Korsakoff patients, spontaneous confabulations were quantified by third‐party rating (Likert scale). Provoked confabulations were assessed using the Dalla Barba Confabulation Battery. Furthermore, assessment of executive function was performed using an extensive neuropsychological battery. False memories (i.e. intrusions) and source memory were measured using twoparallelversions of a word‐list learning paradigm (a modification of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test). Results:  There were deficits in source memory, in which patients incorrectly assigned previously learned words to an incorrect word list. Also, Korsakoff patients had extensive executive deficits, but no relationship between the severity of these deficits and the severity of confabulation or intrusions on a memory task was found. Conclusion:  The present findings provide evidence for a dissociation between spontaneous confabulation, provoked confabulation and false memories.

Objectives-To investigate the relation between anterograde amnesia and atrophy of brain structures involved in memory processing in alcoholic KorsakoV's syndrome. Methods-The volume of brain structures involved in memory processing was measured with MRI from 13 subjects with KorsakoV's syndrome, 13 subjects with chronic alcoholism without KorsakoV's syndrome, and 13 control subjects. The brain structures analysed were the hippocampus, the parahippocampal gyrus, the mamillary bodies, the third ventricle, and the thalamus. Brain volumes were correlated with the delayed recall of a verbal learning test. Results-Compared with subjects with chronic alcoholism and control subjects, subjects with KorsakoV's syndrome had a reduced volume of the hippocampus, the mamillary bodies, and the thalamus, and enlargement of the third ventricle. The impairment of delayed recall correlated with the volume of the third ventricle (r=−0.55, p=0.05) in the KorsakoV group. Conclusions-Anterograde amnesia in alcoholic KorsakoV's syndrome is associated with atrophy of the nuclei in the midline of the thalamus, but not with atrophy of the mamillary bodies, the hippocampus, or the parahippocampal gyrus. (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1999;67:774-778)