Decision-making deficits of korsakoff patients in a new gambling task with explicit rules: associations with executive functions.
Decision-making deficits reflected by risky decisions in gambling tasks have been associated with frontal lobe dysfunctions in various neurologic and psychiatric populations. The question remains whether decision-making impairments are related to executive functions. The authors developed a new gambling task, the Game of Dice Task, with explicit and stable rules for reinforcement and punishment, to investigate relations between executive functions and risk-taking behavior in an explicit decision-making situation. A sample of 35 alcoholic Korsakoff patients and 35 healthy controls was examined with the Game of Dice Task and a neuropsychological test battery. Results show that Korsakoff patients are strongly impaired in this explicit decision-making task and that these disturbances are correlated with specific executive functions.
Brand
Matthias
M
Department of Physiological Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany. m.brand@unibielefeld.de
Fujiwara
Esther
E
Borsutzky
Sabine
S
Kalbe
Elke
E
Kessler
Josef
J
Markowitsch
Hans J
HJ
D001244:Association; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling; D006801:Humans; D020915:Korsakoff Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric