Olfactory discrimination in alcoholic korsakoff patients

Abstract Simple discrimination of various odorants and short-term memory for odors were assessed in alcoholic Korsakoff patients and alcoholic and non-alcoholic controls by means of a sniff-bottle technique. Korsakoff patients demonstrated a striking impairment of olfactory discrimination, scoring at a level no greater than chance on both delay and non-delay conditions. Neither control group showed a significant decay in olfactory STM over a 30-sec delay interval. The possibility that the Korsakoffs' olfactory impairment is related to thalamic and/or hypothalamic damage in this disease is discussed.