Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome

[vair-ni-kuh-kawr-suh-kawf, -kof]

noun

1. a disorder of the central nervous system characterized by abnormal eye movements, incoordination, confusion, and impaired memory and learning functions, caused by thiamine deficiency, and observed in chronic alcoholism.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome¹

1965–70; named after German neurologist Karl Wernicke (1848–1905) and Russian psychiatrist Sergeĭ Sergeevich Korsakov (1854–1900), who independently described it

Example Sentences

The report also indicates that 42 percent of residents in assisted living facilities had Alzheimer's disease and other dementias – such as vascular dementia, lewy body dementia, mixed dementia, Parkinson's disease, frontotemporal dementia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, normal pressure hydrocephalus, Huntington's disease and Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome – in 2010.

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Such damage to executive function is more subtle than the severe forms of alcohol-related brain damage known as Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, in which chronic alcohol consumption causes a deficiency in thiamine that can lead to hallucinations, amnesia, psychosis and difficulty walking.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

Five of the conversations took place in 2010, the year that Vidal began to suffer the effects of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, or “wet brain,” which Parini calls “a stage in alcoholism when the drinker begins to lose touch with reality.”

Read more on The New Yorker

If not treated promptly, the brain can suffer permanent damage – usually to the ability to learn and form memories, a condition called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome.

Read more on New York Times