Visual and auditory spatial and nonspatial delayed-response performance by Korsakoff and non-Korsakoff alcoholic and aging individuals.

Abstract

Thirty-six male alcoholics (13 with Korsakoff's syndrome) and 24 controls performed visual and auditory delayed-response tasks sensitive to prefrontal cortical damage in nonhuman primates. Korsakoff patients were consistently impaired compared with other subjects. Impairments by Korsakoff patients were evident when demands were placed on visual processing time (brief stimulus durations), and the deficits became exaggerated with increased demands on short-term memory. Under the most difficult experimental conditions, controls and non-Korsakoff alcoholics who were over 50 years old performed somewhat worse compared with younger groups 27-49 years old. Age-linked deficits were mild compared with Korsakoffs' deficits, and age-group differences disappeared with easier task demands. The results implicate cortical pathology in alcoholism and normal chronological aging and suggest that prefrontal damage accompanies alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome.

Longitudinal Brain Metabolic Characterization of Chronic Alcoholics With Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

“…MRI (Di Sclafani et al, 1995;Pfefferbaum et al, 1995) and positron emission tomography (Adams et al, 1993;DaoCastellana et al, 1998;Martin et al, 1992) studies and neuropsychological testing (Oscar-Berman et al, 1992;Parsons, 1993;Parsons and Nixon, 1993) have implicated structural and functional involvement of the frontal lobes in uncomplicated alcoholics. That we observed reductions in cerebellar, but not frontal, [NAA] and [Cho] in our patients could reflect unrecognized localization of the VOI in an undamaged region of the frontal WM (Gonen et al, 2000).…”

The neurobiology of thalamic amnesia: Contributions of medial thalamus and prefrontal cortex to delayed conditional discrimination

“…2) that persists chronically for many months after restitution of nutritional status . Comparative neuropsychological studies have shown that WKS affects delayed conditional discriminations of sensory stimuli in multiple sensory modalities, including delayed matching (DM) or nonmatching (DNM) tasks in which subjects choose between two response alternatives based on stimulus information presented in a preceding sample trial (Aggleton et al, 1988;Oscar-Berman et al, 1992;Squire et al, 1988). WKS patients also make more errors to criteria learning two choice discrimination and serial reversal learning tasks, although they retain the ability to perform discriminations at criteria once learned and exhibit positive transfer across a series of reversal problems (Oscar-Berman and Zola-Morgan, 1980).…”

Behavioral and Neurochemical Alterations Following Thiamine Deficiency in Rodents: Relationship to Functions of Cholinergic Neurons

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