MONDAY, Dec. 22, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Deficiencies in the brain's hippocampus play an important role in the alcoholism-related memory disorder called Korsakoff's syndrome.
That's the finding of a study in the Dec. 23 issue of Neurology.
These deficiencies are similar to those fond in the brain's of people with Alzheimer's disease.
The study included five men with alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome, 20 men with Alzheimer's and 36 healthy men. Their brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
The brains of the men with Korsakoff's and those with Alzheimer's were comparable in significant volume loss in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays an important role in memory functions.
The study found that the greater their hippocampus deterioration, the higher the men with Korsakoff's scored on the memory deterioration index. The researchers found a similar correlation in the men with Alzheimer's.
"Awareness of the clinical and radiological similarities between Korsakoff's syndrome and Alzheimer's disease may help with the detection of each," study author Edith V. Sullivan, of the Stanford University School of Medicine, says in a prepared statement.
"Although controversial, we believe that the nature of the memory impairment in these disorders is the same, while their overall profiles are different," she says.
More information
Here's where you can learn more about Korsakoff's syndrome.